


Ruins: A Primer for Tourists

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:38:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which an adult Ukoku strives to redeem himself after an impulsive act he commits as a teenager has devastating consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruins: A Primer for Tourists

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theskywasblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/gifts).



> [](http://kis.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kis**](http://kis.dreamwidth.org/)' and [](http://whymzycal.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://whymzycal.dreamwidth.org/)**whymzycal** ’s help and advice were invaluable while I wrote this. Their suggestions made the story much better in so many ways, but they didn’t read the final revision or seal and submit the story, so all subsequent mistakes and less-than-stellar decisions are mine. On that note, one of Whymzy’s concerns was that so many references to locations, cultural sites and other cultural references might detract from the story. I had hoped they were famous enough that they wouldn’t, and most of them are easily googled. Hopefully, that will make the story easier to follow.
> 
> Written for the 2012 [](http://7thnight_smut.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://7thnight_smut.dreamwidth.org/)**7thnight_smut** A/U giftfic exchange prompt: _“Modern-day setting: Ukoku moves into a new house/apartment/whatever and finds Koumyou is his eccentric neighbour.”_

RUINS: A PRIMER FOR TOURISTS

**Pairing:** Primarily Koumyou/Ukoku, but also Koumyou/Goudai and Koumyou/Goudai/Ken'yuu  
 **Rating:** NC17  
 **Warnings:** AU: Reincarnation Fic. Dubcon, pederasty, underage drinking and other legal infractions, violence, coarse language, death.  
 **Status:** 3-Part novelette, complete. 28,857 words.  
 **Disclaimer:** This Saiyuki fanfiction story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Kazuya Minekura. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The content is for adult readers only.

**i. Ancient History**

 

 

Sunrise lifted ethereal threads and columns of steam off the hush-still Grand Canal and floodwaters, and backlit the domes and turrets of the Basilica with golden-pink light. At the dawn of the Midsummer solstice in his sixteenth year, Ken’yuu stood on La Piazza in Venice with his much older cousin, Goudai, and his cousin’s lover, Koumyou. The miracle of this particular moment was that they were the only human beings on the square. Acqua Alta and eustasy had submerged the pavement, and along with the earliness of the hour, it was enough to keep the hordes away.

They waded thigh-deep in Adriatic surge across its breadth until they came to a small standing platform that had broken from its moorings and drifted into the center of the plaza’s western wing where it stuck. More of a pedestal than a platform, it was only large enough to fit one, but they congregated around it, circling like gondolas with rudders jammed, eyes wide and mouths speechless, except for Goudai. In the throes of Stendhal Syndrome, he spread his arms like great branches and splashed and shouted, “Bella! Bella! Bella!”

Had any other soul appeared, Ken’yuu would’ve wanted to sink below the waves, but Koumyou only laughed, his golden hair and open, sunny expression out-dazzling _La Serenissima_ in a contest of light.

Ken’yuu finally decided why he was there, in Italy with these two men, and what he had to do.

“Here, hold these for me.” He started peeling off his clothes and dumping them into the Koumyou’s arms.

The look on the man’s face was of pure confoundment, but he tried to act like a gentleman and said, “Excuse me, but we’re in a public place, and you can get arrested for that.”

“Yeah, but the square’s empty, so back off a little? I want Goudai to take my picture as David with San Marco in the background.” Ken’yuu hopped onto the platform and shimmied out of his wet jeans and sandals. “This chance will never happen again.”

“David?” Goudai gaped, flummoxed. “David, who?”

“The statue? Naked guy ... marble ... holds a slingshot?”

“Michelangelo’s David!”

Ken’yuu could tell that the idea hit his companions like lightning. Their eyes were crackling with it. Electrical charges seemed to ripple off them under the water. They were dreamers, artists, not wholly connected to the earth. They should’ve known better.

“Are you sure?” Goudai asked.

“Yeah, yeah, but we gotta act fast,” he reminded his cousin. “We don’t have much time before the circus shows up.”

“Let’s do it!” Goudai grabbed his camera and immediately started fiddling with the lens.

Koumyou backed out of the panorama frame and started calling out stage directions, telling Ken’yuu to toss him his glasses, straighten his back, cant his hips to the left and throw all his weight onto that leg, and slide the right one out just so. Then he had to lift his right arm to his shoulder and pout a little. Ken’yuu was at a perfect age to pose in character. His body was well-shaped, his chest and face were hairless, and his hair curled spontaneously in the heat and humidity. There was only one way in which he didn’t share a resemblance with the sculpture.

“Michelangelo never endowed David with a – a — an endowment like yours, young man. It’ll be a trick not to make that look like porn.”

“Some of us are naturally gifted.” Ken’yuu stabbed at flippancy. The last thing he wanted his cock to notice was all the attention and nice compliments it was getting from that handsome Koumyou. “Can we get this started, please? If we wait much longer, I’ll attract an audience.”

The flash was already bursting.

“Technically, you should be facing west-southwest,” Koumyou quibbled. “Michelangelo’s David was supposed to be glaring at Rome.”

“And here I thought he was supposed to be glaring at Goliath.”

“Ha-ha! Well, without getting into a Renaissance Civics lesson, if we were to get hung up on technicalities, this would be happening in Florence, not Venice. Besides, the picture wouldn’t work nicely because your position in front of the Basilica would be all wrong. It’s difficult enough to photograph facing the morning light directly like this, even if the sun hasn’t climbed high enough over the horizon yet. With all those shadows, San Marco’s looks like a bat-cave.“

“I can adjust for light levels by using the flash and a light yellow filter,” Goudai told Koumyou. “Later this evening, we’ll come back and take some shots of San Marco for the frontal lighting. Even if the place is overrun with barbarians, we’ll ‘shop the images to intensify contrasts and hues afterwards.

“The real trick, Ken’yuu, is getting all of you and those central concave domes over the entrance of San Marco in the same picture with enough water to make it look like you’re floating on the sea, but without cutting off the right side of the picture with that bloody Campanile–”

“And a mighty impressive erection it—would you look at that spire!” Koumyou bit off his suggestive quip.

“– Which throws off the balance. We can’t get it in the picture, anyway, and I don’t want you to look like a matching tower. If we were facing the Grand Canal, I could line you up between the twin pillars, and that would look okay,” Goudai explained between various series of strobes. “Symmetry works better in threes than twos.”

“Should I move this contraption over to that side of the Plaza?”

“No, the perspective and lighting isn’t right. If we shift the platform I can’t guarantee it won’t float away—with you on it, stark naked, down the Grand Canal.

“And what a sight that would be!” Ken’yuu heard him mutter to Koumyou, who replied with a knowing smile.

“It’s no different from a model posing nude for life drawing classes, is it?” Ken’yuu felt a bit defensive.

“It’s completely different, actually.” Koumyou said. “Think about it.”

And when Ken’yuu shrugged, he clarified, “This isn’t a life-drawing class. We’re in a public square.”

The plastic top of Ken’yuu’s pedestal rose just above the waterline and at complete odds with the rock and other natural materials that had been used to construct La Piazza, not to mention the water which filled the square, and the sky reflected within it. Goudai asked Koumyou to generate more wavelets to break up the water surface and conceal the stand.

“God, this looks great. You look like a male Venus rising from the waves.”

Ken’yuu snorted.

“Okay, a Greek god: a young Apollo or Poseidon.”

“Wrong country,” Ken’yuu snorted. “Wasn’t this Roman territory?”

“Greeks came here first,” Goudai reminded him.

“Greeks always come first,” Koumyou couldn’t stop himself.

“I don’t care who came when,” Ken’yuu said. Now that the sun had risen enough, he was starting to feel the sensuality of its warmth. “Just make it look good. Make it otherworldly and artistic, like that guy whose work we saw in San Remo, the photographer you keep talking about.”

“Steichen?”

“Yeah, that guy. Make it so I don’t ever regret this.”

“Don’t worry,” Goudai reassured, switching lenses. “Good-looking comes naturally to naked young men. So long as you listen to Koumyou’s advice, you’ll look sensual instead of lewd, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Lewd or sensual, it’s art. Why should that bother me?”

“Because it’s illegal. We get that it doesn’t bother you.” Goudai quickly switched the lens on his camera, then muttered under his breath, “Obviously, you have no qualms stripping in front of your two gay traveling companions.”

But Ken'yuu heard it loud and clear and answered with, “That especially doesn’t bother me. I think we all know by now, I’m pretty sure I’m gay, too—or, at the very least, bi.”

“The very least? Gay or bi? Are you sure you’re pretty sure?” Goudai parroted in disbelief. “Please say you know you aren’t. Your mother will blame me, then Italy, and then she’ll lock you in the closet and never let you leave it again. Not to mention, you aren’t supposed to use your grown-up dick until you turn eighteen.”

“Legal age is fourteen back home,” Ken’yuu shrugged. He had succeeded in turning the tables on them, but it didn’t feel particularly gratifying. It felt like he was pushing, trying to convince them of his readiness—something that he felt shouldn’t require persuasion.

The two grown-ups exchanged a look.

“That may well be,” Koumyou said after a few more shots. He pointed to the space between the _Logetta_ and the _Libreria,_ “but company’s coming, and this shoot has to end now.”

Ken’yuu instantly cannonballed off the platform and crouched so that his lower half remained hidden underwater. Koumyou threw his t-shirt over his head and shoulders, then tossed him his jeans. From the nervous looks he and Goudai kept directing toward the edge of the square where the strangers had appeared, Ken’yuu assumed someone had summoned the police.

Urgency and impending danger made it even harder to yank sopping denim up Ken’yuu’s thighs. It was as though the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew was being re-enacted live in his pants.

“Bet you wish you’d worn hemp-silk or bamboo now, hmm?” Koumyou had been trying to smarten up his wardrobe for weeks.

“Nah, that’s for old dudes,” Ken’yuu backlipped, and then, one second later, “Crap!” as he nearly caught his natural endowment in his zipper.

“Let’s go!” Goudai called out, quickly plugging a new memory card into the camera. They made a beeline for the Canal, as the strangers pointed them out and the _Carabinieri_ started walking toward them.

Goudai’s hunch was well-founded. They were stopped, and the police did ask to look at the camera, but it now only held previously shot images of villas along _La Brenta_ in Veneto and a few panoramas of La Piazza’s treasures shot in the interval between their discovery and detainment. Ken’yuu suddenly realized security cameras were stationed all around, along with guards, and there wasn’t an expanse, corner or alcove that didn’t show up on somebody’s monitor, and he had been right out in the open. Probably dozens of people in varying degrees of authority had witnessed their escapade.

For a moment, he wondered if the _Carabinieri_ were going to insist on remanding them, a very real possibility from anger in the officer’s voice. He wondered if he should attempt to bribe someone, since he’d heard stories of how Italian police were completely corrupt and infiltrated by the Mafia, but he didn’t know how one would go about doing this even if he dared take the chance that the stories were true. Mercifully, the police were distracted by another louder and more intrusive urban drama. An altercation had started between a drunkard and a security man in a doorway to the Doge’s Palace. So, with only a stern caution not to cause trouble, they were left in peace, as other tourists arrived until they were thoroughly forgotten.

Not so much forgotten, Ken’yuu corrected himself, as dismissed in consideration of youth, impetuosity and being uncouth foreigners with the misfortune of having not been raised in Venice—and, most likely, it being too much of a bother to follow up with an official arrest.

The incident had made one subtle change in their collective relationship: Ken’yuu could tell from the glances of admiration and respect that Goudai and Koumyou sent him that they were now on more equal footing. His risk had paid off, and he was sure he would soon reap the benefits.

Until that moment, Ken’yuu couldn’t conceive why this pair chose to drag him along on their travels, and although it was enriching to have Italy’s abundant pleasures interpreted by two such well-educated and broad-minded companions, he had never felt so unsophisticated and in the way. This feeling especially bubbled up when they focused their gaze through a camera lens, as both men were skilled photographers and their instruments had never once been zipped into carrying cases during the entire expedition. Ken’yuu stood around feeling lumpish, thick and about as necessary as rubber toast while they worked out angles, lighting and composition and click-click-clicked their way through more splendours of nature, scenes of cultural quintessence and pillars of accomplishment than he would ever remember ... ever ... ever ... the first month of their journey having already mostly garbled into incomprehension.

His sense of obstruction grew so much worse when skies dimmed and lamps flickered on. Studio suites minimized expenses, but in sharing their room, Ken’yuu felt most like a big, gawky chunk of clay that had dropped off Mount Superfluous. Sometimes, he caught slight telltale creaks and gasps from their bed during the stillest hours of night—all very hush-hush and which would’ve escaped his notice completely were he not so hyper-sensitized to men having sex with other men — but his sense of uselessness was compounded by his own desire. The racier Gladiatorial slave mosaics excavated from various ruins had almost flattened him.

From the moment, one afternoon three years prior, when Koumyou first stepped from Goudai’s sports car and strode up the lane to Ken’yuu’s parents’ home, smiling, laughing and swinging his gleaming sheath of long hair around him so that it lifted from his back and shoulders like a golden parasol, Ken’yuu had wanted him. Whenever they were thrown together, he would track Koumyou under his eyelashes, pretending to read books while stalking the man’s reflection on shiny surfaces. This continued in their various Italian rooms, where Koumyou usually wore nothing but a hand-painted silken _furisode_ and would drape himself, cat-like, across a pile of pillows to light up a pipe and smoke. Ken’yuu found him wholly seductive, the way he would fish a peony from a vase and wind it into his hair, skewering it in place with a lacquered chopstick he happened to carry in the kimono’s sleeve; the way he would chew on each morsel of food hundreds of times, unconsciously letting out barely audible moans and sighs of delight; the way he would spend hours lost to the world, utterly absorbed by a fresco or ruin, a book, or a piece of music. Ken’yuu thought he was being clever and subtle about his spying, and that no one, not even Koumyou himself, noticed.

He wasn’t so sure about his feelings for Goudai, who punctured the teenager’s most tender delusions with a devastating straightforwardness. Ken’yuu tried not to think about him at all in a sexual manner, mostly because Goudai felt completely above and beyond him, unreachable.

At least the two men made sexuality as little of an issue as possible by practicing restraint around the boot of Italy, for which Ken’yuu was most grateful.

He had ample time and opportunity to find partners, especially during the long walks he took every evening to give the couple some time alone. He could see other gay men checking him out and signaling their interest, but he never followed through.

The weeks they spent in Rome had included a side-trip to Tivoli, where Goudai received a special dispensation from the estate’s administrators to photograph the gardens at Villa d’Este. Ken'yuu, who felt no interest in fountains or plants whatsoever, had assumed he'd be ready to grind marble with his teeth out of boredom, but after the crush of Rome and the Sistine Chapel especially, the gardens turned out to be a true sanctuary.

As Goudai and Koumyou captured the place in an all-encompassing, almost meditative fashion, from sweeping panoramas to the finest, most exquisite details, Ken'yuu would chase along the pathways during the lulls between tour groups and hide in quiet places, feeling the sun’s heat on his back like it was an incorporeal lover. He would lie in the lawns, on the north sides of the fountains, pushing his hips into the spongy texture, relishing its slight give. The shade-trees, especially near the cool spray which wafted off the Oval Fountain, soothed his overheated body, even as scents of earth and cypress charged his libido by reconnecting him to a more primeval state of nature, as though he’d turned into a faun or satyr. If Ken’yuu had been anywhere else in the world, the idea of transforming into a faun or satyr would’ve left him howling with self-mockery, but there was something about these gardens that drew it out of him, like it was embedded in the DNA of the earth’s very bones. He knew he wasn’t quite ready to become a centaur, although he reckoned it was in his future—in fact, under the heady influence of the garden, he would spend hours musing that Goudai was the centaur of their trio—and God! There, that image appeared in his mind again, of Goudai tearing Koumyou’s clothes off, bending him over one of the garden benches and ravishing him; would they never stop tormenting him? If Ken’yuu had thought he could get away with it, he would’ve stripped naked and run through the garden like a real faun.

On one such evening in late May, after floodlights had switched on to illuminate various features and the last periwinkle blue reflections of sky across the fish ponds stood in light contrast to the surrounding _boschetto,_ Ken'yuu was running along the pathways, as usual. A fish, chasing a daphnid above the water’s surface, happened to leap from the pond onto the marble flagstones. It flopped and spasmed before flipping itself back into the water, but the tiny event had thrown Ken'yuu off his stride. He was further startled when he slipped in puddles of water that the fish had scattered over the smooth marble path, and would’ve tumbled after it but for a powerful arm which reached out and tucked around his abdomen, pulling him back and steadying him on his feet.

Ken'yuu was cinched against the larger, warm muscular body of a man in his prime. Everything stopped. They stayed frozen within the moment for far longer than the circumstance required, a moment counted by heartbeats, and Ken'yuu found he had neither strength nor the will to pull away. The warmth and magnetism of the other man sapped it. As his heart pounded and the long lines of his still-developing body were completely and perfectly snugged against these firmer, much stronger muscles, he relaxed into the sensations, relishing the vulnerability and danger, ready for any possibility, including the one of being taken. He was ready—so, so ready—to be taken. Even with his nebulous, teenaged grasp on things, Ken'yuu realized this was different from the attraction he felt to Koumyou.

Just as he surrendered, Goudai leaned forward and breathed into his ear, “Take care, cousin. You don’t want to fall into such murky waters.”

Ken'yuu was just about to retort that he liked the idea very much, that the wet and cool refreshment would be better than almost constant heat, when Goudai murmured, “I see you watching him. It’s obvious to both of us.”

“What?” Embarrassment roasted Ken’yuu, even as the hormonal heat plummeted. He struggled and tried to mask his infatuation. “Who?”

Just as Goudai’s powerful, enfolding arm released him, Ken’yuu heard him say, “No matter how much you stare at him, he isn’t like one of the bugs you’ve been watching here or under the microscope in the bio lab at that private academy you go to. With Koumyou, all the real stuff is subtle.”

Ken’yuu turned to face him directly. It felt disturbing to him that no matter how much he stretched himself to full height, Goudai still had more on him in every sense. “You think I don’t know? So teach me.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Goudai’s tone changed from conspiratorial to matter-of-fact. “It isn’t like puzzling through a mathematical equation.”

“Then why did you bring me along?”

“Koumyou thought the experience would elevate you, not just broaden your intellect. He actually believes you have hidden depths or unrealized potential, something like that.”

“And you don’t?” Ken’yuu wasn’t sure what insulted him more: the apparent fact that Koumyou wasn’t impressed by his brilliance—Ken’yuu was very confident in his brilliance, having always achieved top grades and recommendations in all his studies—and, worse, seemed to feel it would be better if Ken’yuu set his intellectual prowess aside for this  whatever it was that Koumyou valued more; or the fact that Goudai didn’t think he could do this at all, this ... whatever it was Koumyou was hoping he would do.

“I don’t think you even know, yet, what Koumyou means.” Goudai’s tone changed again, now acquiring a note of sympathy. It drove Ken’yuu mad. “If you knew, it wouldn’t be a problem, but bringing you to that stage first—You’re too confused and inexperienced. I don’t know if you’ll make it through the transition, and I don’t know how to awaken that awareness in you. It’s a bit like trying to have a conversation with a cabbage–”

Okay, now Ken’yuu was completely insulted. As far as he was concerned, the one with the more vegetative brain of the two was this stupid artist who had wasted his intellect on cultivating a talent in the outmoded means of recording reality that was still photography. If anything, Goudai was destined to be smeared across his future like roadkill on hot pavement.

“—Not that it’s your fault. How can you know? We’re operating on entirely different wavelengths.”

Nothing infuriated Ken’yuu more than being told that something he didn’t know was beyond his current capacity to learn, especially when it was tied together with sex and infatuation.

Ken'yuu looked back to see Koumyou approach them from the shadows, tripod folded and hefted over his shoulder, long hair smoothed around the neck and tucked over the other shoulder in one long, satiny swath. His eyes were narrowed, full of insinuation and amusement.

“Do we really want to leave?” he asked, his head quirked to the side.

No! Ken'yuu shook his head, but he hadn’t quite recovered. His heart continued to thump like a wind-up toy as Koumyou reached over and caught his chin in a gentle grip. “I have some lovely shots of your cousin, Goudai, completely free of self-consciousness, bounding through these woods.”

Goudai rumbled the sound of skepticism and caution in his throat. He reached out and delicately stroked a finger down Koumyou’s hair. To Ken’yuu, it was like he was marking him, _mine ... mine ... mine._

“I would’ve never thought this place would appeal to you, Ken’yuu.” Koumyou grinned, the Cheshire Cat who’d just fucked the White Rabbit.

“So?” Ken’yuu wasn’t in the mood to be gracious. “Is there a problem with that?”

“Not at all,” Koumyou’s eyes narrowed a fraction more, even if his grin never dropped a millimeter. “I couldn’t be more delighted actually. It concerned me that you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself, which is always a problem when there is such an age difference.

“But the caretakers would like to rest.” Koumyou pointed to the gates where a security guard was stationed. “So, it’s time for us to take our leave.”

Ken'yuu was shattered. He was so dejected and in the way again as he followed the men out to their rental car, arms leaden, feelings numbed, that he thought all his humanity had been stripped away. He embroidered that theme with an escalating, but strangely satisfying melancholia until all that was left of him was dirty and obscene: a tattered, giant, fur-covered mascot, the costume ‘hoiked’ from a rubbish bin somewhere, maybe a furry Cabbage mascot with  with  with rubber tentacles and  and his privates exposed after being caught masturbating at the urinals in a public bathroom, and led off to a police car in handcuffs and shackles, while his rivals at school pointed and said, “Ha-ha-ha! We knew the creepy pervert would end up in jail.”

Although Goudai never mentioned another word on the subject, Ken’yuu’s sense of shame and indignation endured for the remainder of their time in Rome and only really stopped when he peeled off on his own for awhile toward the end.

The annual Pride Parade was scheduled to start from _La Sapienza Universita di Roma_ , with a rally in support of gay marriage slated for the _Parco Del Villa Celimontana,_ followed by a quick hike to the Colosseum where Lady Gaga was to perform free for the cause. While Ken’yuu’s tastes ran more towards _Rise Against_ or _Linkin Park_ , at least his chances of running into someone his own age at this event were likelier than at the recital of chamber works by Arcangelo Corelli which Goudai and Koumyou planned to attend in the formal gardens at Villa Albani. So, off he went, with only a quick text to let the couple know where he was and what he was doing.

The parade was as colourful as he expected: he was doused with water repeatedly, groped and butt-rubbed by daring strangers, which soothed his bruised ego mightily, even if he still didn’t take anyone up on the implicit promises, having decided that Fire Island Pines sex wasn’t his style. He was also kissed enthusiastically on the cheeks and lips by way too many men wearing lipstick, and had his hair ruffled by so many doting old queens that by the time the event wound down, his reflection in a store window was more evil clown than teenage punk.

The concert, for all its hype, turned out to be a 45-minute speech by Lady Gaga followed by one song. One. It lasted nearly ten minutes, but still! To top this off, by the time the crowds had vacated the Flavian Amphitheatre, public transport had stopped running, the taxis were all claimed, and he had to walk twenty miles back to their apartment using the cellphone GPS which failed to account for flyovers, aqueducts and other impediments.

 _How was holiday from old geezers?_ Koumyou texted at midnight.

_Who’s a geezer? On obstacle course home. Back in 3 - 4 hrs._

_:O Need help?_

_No. Just a long walk :(_

_Want to chat while u walk?_

_Batteries r low_

_OK. Text if cavalry required_

_K_

The next day, a very quiet and subdued Ken’yuu tagged along with Koumyou and Goudai. After the third offer of gelato, and some amusing moments where Goudai was rather obviously engaged in a bitter inner struggle to walk away from Trevi Fountain and into the specialty boutiques in the vicinity of the North American College to shop for clothes—each step so forced and resistant, it was like watching him turn into Oz’s Tin Man without the oil can—Ken’yuu realized the others were trying, for his sake, to pander to what they thought a teenage boy would most enjoy. Because he wanted to torture Goudai, Ken’yuu milked this for as much fun as it was worth, but the truth was that he couldn’t care less for fashion beyond the items he already owned. He could also tell, from the bitten-back grin on Koumyou’s face, it was a struggle for him as well, not because Koumyou hated shopping, but because he wanted to dress Ken’yuu in a style more suited for _Sargeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_ jumbled together with a 1970s Renn Faire and an Asian cultural exhibition.

They were just about to walk into another shop, this one offering surfing gear, when Ken’yuu stopped and said, “You know, there are places like this everywhere in the world. Can we just forget about shopping already? We can wait until Milan for clothes, right? Let’s spend our Roman holiday back at that Trevi Palace place, if you don’t mind.”

Goudai dropped his arthritic crawl, Koumyou heaved a sigh of relief, and soon they were back to being friends. Ken’yuu stopped dragging his heels wherever they went and took an active interest in the things they did together. He acted with spontaneity and without so much self-consciousness. During this time, he seemed to be growing steadily in their esteem.

Which brought the trio forward to that one, fateful Midsummer dawn on the flooded and deserted square of San Marco, when all the molecules of Caesar’s dying breath met in a single inhalation.

The impromptu photo-shoot ignited the trio. It was worth walking around for the rest of the day in wet, clammy jeans. The two older men had been growing more staid and predictable as the trip wore on, and since Ken’yuu was basically along for the ride, he had grown sluggish in their wake. But this had reminded them they were alive, and instead of the usual ruins and churches, Ken’yuu was swept off for far more interesting activities. They were fitted for carnival masks and costumes. Suggestive stories involving hidden identities were exchanged. They took in a matinee at La Commedia, a form of theatre which Ken'yuu found very formal and stilted, like Japanese _Noh._ During the play, they discovered the characters upon which their masquerade costumes were based: Ken’yuu had chosen _Scaramouche_ , Koumyou was drawn to _Arlecchino_ , mainly because of diamond-patterned patchwork on his costume, and Goudai was attracted to the fierce countenance of _Brighella_.

“Now that I know a little more, I’m not sure if this character is for me,” Ken’yuu mentioned after the show, with a painful wince.

“You’re not sure? Imagine how Goudai must feel, poor guy.” Koumyou laughed. “I’m just relieved that none of us had the bad luck to pick _Pantalone_ or _Tartaglia_.”

“Who would pick them? They looked exactly like who they were.”

“Unlike real people, all the characters look like themselves, I think. I might hate to dress up as certain characters for a costume party, but I think I would like them very much if I was an actor. They would be interesting to try out. Imagine wearing a new personality like changing into a new set of clothes.”

Ukoku dropped the subject like a hot potato. He didn’t want to get Koumyou started on clothes.

Then he and Koumyou left Goudai sitting at an outdoor bar while Koumyou took Ken’yuu to one of the tourist kiosks where he could buy some souvenirs and postcards to send home.

Ken’yuu picked out an image of Michelangelo’s _Statue of David_. When he looked on the back, he noticed something strange.

“Weird! Why do they carry this postcard when the statue isn’t even here?”

Koumyou peered over his shoulder. “Mm, lovely. It’s in Florence.”

“Right, so why are they selling the postcard here?”

“I suppose because it’s an image so tied together with Italian art and history that it has come to represent the whole country. There is so much to see in Italy, sometimes people can’t visit every city. Althou-ou-ough .” He reached past Ken’yuu and plucked another card off the rack, “If I was to go for a David that most reminded me of you, this is the one I would choose.”

True to form, Ken’yuu read the back of the card first. “ _Donatello’s bronze, commissioned by the Medici; Bargello Museum of Art, Florence._ Again, Florence!”

Then he flipped it around.

“At least he’s wearing his hat and boots,” he spluttered.

Koumyou was wearing his Cheshire Cat face again, “Oh, don’t be so hard on the poor fellow. He was probably dying of heat carrying around that big sword.”

“Right, speaking of which, where does it say that David slew Goliath with a sword? I thought it was a slingshot. This David,” Ken’yuu indignantly waved the picture of Michelangelo’s sculpture, “he may be naked, but at least he’s carrying a slingshot. How do they even know this guy with the hat and boots is David?”

Koumyou’s smile slipped a fraction this time, although his eyes lost none of their warmth. “I thought Donatello’s David was terribly handsome.”

The gentle rebuke was like a smack across Ken’yuu’s face.

“Ah!” He stopped, mid-rant. “There is that. He is definitely a very bee-yooo-tiful boy, very pretty. So much so I wonder why it makes you think of me at all. In what way do I look like him?”

“Oh, sometimes in the way you challenge Goudai. You have a little swagger to your hips like that. A kitten facing off with a doberman comes to mind. Only someone with a firm belief that the whole universe is on their side would pull a stunt like that.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I’m more than a match for Goudai, physically, if you must know. Sixteen is the prime of youth. ”

“Ha-ha, I would never, ever put that theory to the test if I were you. But to return to the subject, there’s also this young David’s devil-may-care pose. It is a stance that only a very strong and confident young man can pull off.”

“He’s got ringlets, Koumyou. Curly, curly ringlets.”

“So does–” Koumyou squinted at Michelangelo’s David, “Oh, I guess not. I don’t know, Ken’yuu. This David reminds me of Goudai, only without all the body hair.”

“Shouldn’t that be more like David—that’s me—vs. Goudai-ath?” Ken’yuu wouldn’t wrap his imagination around his cousin as a David.

“In what way has Goudai been an oppressive bully to you? It seems to me you’ve been treated rather well, and if anything, he’s been the picture of forbearance.”

“Okay, fine. But I’m also more like that David. That guy‘s serious. This guy’s got ringlets.”

“I see Michelangelo’s version of David within you as a possibility for the future, yes, but not now. Sorry, handsome.”

“I’ll prove it to you,” Ken’yuu muttered darkly.

“Yes, yes. I look forward to it.”

“What can I do to prove to you that I’m a man and worth being taken seriously?”

Koumyou stopped grinning. He fidgeted with the postcard rack, pulling out and regarding Tiepolo’s vision of Heaven with all its hosts floating up in the sky for a moment, before shuddering and shoving the card back like it had sprouted teeth and bit his fingers, clearly not his idea of Paradise. “Why push the river to the sea?”

“Huh?”

“A river flows by itself. Why do you need to be anyone other than your own beautiful self as you are right now? What makes you feel compelled to prove anything to me?”

“Because– _aagh!” — ‘I want you,’_ Ken’yuu didn’t say. Koumyou was being unfair, not to mention a bit too clever and calculating, pushing the conversation into terrain where Ken’yuu dared not follow. Ken’yuu decided he could be clever and calculating as well. “I have a grown man’s feelings.”

Koumyou finally seemed to regard him seriously. He considered his answer carefully before responding, “Yes, but an adult heart is always large enough to contain those feelings and transmute them into something else. It is only a child’s small and selfishly focused heart that lets them spill forth in uninhibited expression without consideration of how they are received or how they affect the others around him.”

The heavily coiffured and painted young woman who manned the kiosk was starting to make impatient noises.

“But how does one know when to–?”

“By developing sensitivity to that which is subtle and unstated; for example, by placing the feelings of others in an ascendancy of importance above one’s own, which means learning to read the signals they send to you.”

“But what if the signals are confusing?”

 _“Signori, per favore!”_ The clerk kept trying to hurry them along. Her voice was surprisingly husky.

“Granted, some situations are ambiguous, but wouldn’t you be more inclined to say that confusion is usually an excuse for when you don’t like what the signals are telling you, because they go against your wishes?”

Ken’yuu flopped his head back. That was the only answer Koumyou was going to give him and he knew it, and it was the answer he, most of all, did not want to hear.

Afterward, he bought both postcards of David, and sent his family neither. They got a picture of San Marco’s instead. He wasn’t sure what he intended to do with the Davids. The cards already felt unpleasantly hot to his touch, as though they were supernatural fetish objects. He was so horny and unsatisfied, it felt like he was about to explode.

By evening, Acqua Alta had subsided, the platforms were stowed away and the square was packed with tourists. Goudai brought along his tripod, however, and set it up in the same visual corridor as they had used that morning, while Koumyou and Ken’yuu handled crowd control. Koumyou’s SDLR with its splendid array of lenses was borrowed to capture San Marco’s brilliant sunset golds and oranges, while the memory card they used that morning was re-inserted into Goudai’s camera and left on in the viewfinder for reference with regard to the angles and perspective. They were also fortunate to score a brilliant blue eastern sky piled with towering pink and peach-coloured cumulonimbus like a Maxfield Parrish painting.

“We’ve really lucked out with synchronizing the perspectives,” Goudai said. “I will hardly need to use the transformation tool at all. All we need do is blend the two backgrounds together carefully. That will bring out the architectural details and get rid of the tourists.”

After taking a couple dozen shots, he paused, considering, and then said, “One thing that bothers me is that most of the appeal lies in the original picture’s spontaneity. You know, even if it was based around a pose? What I mean is, we had the high water, the Plaza’s emptiness, the platform and your willingness to flow with your inspiration, Ken’yuu. That’s perfection, don’t you think? If we tinker with the light and colour, then the whole image loses its authenticity.”

Ken’yuu shrugged. “We could try something else: maybe we should arrange the photos in series of threes.”

Goudai shook his head to indicate that he wasn’t following.

“It’s like one of those altarpieces with the folding doors that we kept seeing, you know, in the private chapels of fancy homes.” A tourist was backing into the area they had set up with the tripod, so Ukoku tapped him gently on the shoulder to keep him from stepping into the camera. “They’re a series of images, right? So, we do something that. We take an image shot during the morning and put it, say, on the right, then one of these evening shots on the left and the combined image in the middle.”

The two men looked at him with that same charge of electricity rippling through them that they had felt that morning, the same excitement.

“I like the idea because ... well, there are three of us involved in the shoot. ’Symmetry works better in threes, than twos’, didn’t you say that?”

“You’re really starting to think like an artist.” Goudai chuckled.

 

 

Later, back at the suite and sated on _ciccheti_ , Goudai kicked off his sandals on their balcony, toasted Ken’yuu with _prosecco_ , “That was a moment of serendipity. Even during tidal surges, I’ve never known a summer hour — day or night — when that place wasn’t bursting at the seams with tourists. We really lucked out.”

“That was inspired,” Koumyou told Ken’yuu, eyes glimmering.

“Thanks for humouring me,” Ken’yuu mumbled, embarrassed and awkward again, now that the moment had passed.

“Not at all. It was our pleasure!” Koumyou reassured. “Not to mention it was very brave of you. Even if the place was empty, I don’t know very many young people who would have the guts to doff their rig for the sake of some spontaneous art-photography.”

“Not to mention in front of us,” Goudai added, wincing as he immediately regretted his words, and fielded a sharp kick from Koumyou under the table.

“You already know that doesn’t bother me,” Ken’yuu grumbled.

“How considerate. It doesn’t bother him.” Goudai winked at Koumyou. “You’re a minor; apart from some sharp words and a slap on the wrist, nothing will ever happen to you. It’s me and Koumyou, though, who will take the hit if you ever pull a stunt like that again.”

At Ken’yuu’s hurt look, he amended his words. “Look, although today’s events were exceptional and inspired, I’m still feeling uneasy about the whole business. So, this is what I’m going to do.” He threw open his laptop and plugged in the camera memory card. “I’m going to upload the images from the San Marco’s shoot into a file, send it to your email, and delete them from my records entirely. That way, the decision about what to do with them is completely up to you. I suggest waiting until you’re eighteen.”

“But you’re the professional photographer.” Ken’yuu scowled. He appreciated the power Goudai was returning to him but felt that the whole point of the event was missed. “I don’t know how to print them or ’shop them into something someone would hang on a gallery wall.”

“Wait until you turn eighteen.” Goudai’s fingers punched in keystrokes. “Then bring them back to me and I’ll work my magic if that’s what you want.”

He pushed ‘Enter’.

Ken’yuu puzzled over his feelings, which were all mixed up. “I don’t get it. I didn’t do this for people to get off on, sexually. I did it for the sake of art.”

“I know.” Goudai switched computer tasks and prepared to delete the files from his camera card. He paused for a moment, when he caught a glimpse of Ken’yuu’s troubled face. “I understand. I really do! It was an aesthetic decision, and there is an entire body of critical discourse that supports it as art, but customs officials and border guards won’t necessarily share that outlook.”

There was a _blee-boop_ sound as a message popped up in his mailbox.

“Damn, I was afraid of this. The file’s too big for your email account. You aren’t set up to send or receive large graphics.”

“I guess you have to hold onto them for a bit longer.”

“Or I could sign you up for an FTP account.”

“A — what?”

“Online sites which temporarily store heavy files in private accounts and allow you or others to download the files by sending you a link to click. I could just upload the file onto one of those.”

“Okay ... ” Ken’yuu looked confused.

“I can wait until you’re feeling a little fresher to explain. It’s a bit of a hassle,” Goudai scowled, shutting the laptop off. “And it’ll sit ’til morning. Right now, I just want to kick back and have some more of that excellent, excellent wine.”

“You wanna know what I don’t get?” Ken’yuu reached over and filled up his glass, and then he topped up his own. He was feeling warm and fuzzy from all the compliments and the wine. It made him feel like he was ready to perform daredevil feats of bravery. “What’s the deal with you and Koumyou getting punished for me? How come you would have to take the blame just ’cause I stripped? Because so far, we’ve gotten away Scot-free, haven’t we? — Or, well, with just a warning.”

“We’re supposed the grownups, here,” Koumyou explained. “We’re the ones who are supposed to protect you. In fact, we explicitly promised your parents we would as a condition of bringing you with us. We’re their temporary replacements.”

“I sure as hell would never have stripped like that in front of them, but it was my decision, my choice. How can they blame you?”

“They will. They just do.”

“How were you supposed to stop me? You can’t stop me if I want to go out and, let’s say, find some random guy to have sex with. How are you supposed to do that?”

“I sincerely hope you won’t do something so reckless or dangerous.”

“I don’t plan to, so ... ” Ken'yuu paused, wondering how to ask, and deciding in the end that asking involved the possibility of being denied, so he didn’t. Filled with bubbly liquid courage, instead he demanded, “Teach me.”

“What?”

“How am I supposed to protect you from taking the blame for me, if I’m so– no, when I’m so horny? I need sex.”

Nobody said a word. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

Ken’yuu couldn’t stand the silence. His mouth rushed in to fill it. “You know, I get offers all the time. Whenever I go out? You should see how many people hit on me. Young men, old men, young women, old women ... men who look like women, they all wanna do me. I could be partying my way across Europe, but I don’t because I don’t want it to be like that. I want it to be with people I like and trust.”

Jasmine and gardenia brightened the evening air. Gondoliers, rowing past their apartment on the Canal, sang sentimental folk songs. The breeze was gentle.

Ken’yuu’s heart quailed. He tried to puff his bravado back up by asking, in a slightly subdued tone, “So, again, how am I supposed to protect you guys if–”

“You’ve got it backwards, kid.” Goudai swallowed a mouthful of wine. “You aren’t expected to protect anyone.”

“I suppose I can always go and find someone else to teach me, one way or another.” Ken’yuu tried to make it sound wistful, but only managed sulky.

“Do you really need to do that?” Koumyou asked. “Can’t it wait? Why such a tearing hurry?”

Ken’yuu scowled. “What’s wrong with hurrying?”

“Nothing, except that using strangers is cynical and disrespectful. The right partner makes all the difference. Love makes all the difference. It’s worth waiting for.”

“Love!” Ken’yuu was so frustrated he had to bite back acid. “Well, that’s ... freaking quaint, isn’t it? Of course I’d rather do it with someone I love, but where’s this partner? I’m standing here ready to explode. I’m getting to the point where anyone will do. I ’m starting to walk around with a permanent hard-on. It’s like I’ve got a flagpole stuck down my pants.”

“Stop it! Just stop!” Koumyou scolded. “Does this amuse you?”

Ken’yuu had never seen his companions look so grim.

“It’s hard to watch you two while I’m feeling so-so-so  frustrated and  and aroused  and-and-” He stifled a howl, walked to the door, lifted his hand to unlatch it, stopped, dropped his hand, walked back and then turned in a few helpless and bewildered circles. “I-I don’t know what to do. It’s — it hurts. I like you, so I thought I would try. I don’t know what to do. God, somebody fuck me!”

Ken’yuu dropped into a chair, dropped his head into his hands and wished the floor would swallow him.

“Are you seriously asking us to initiate you?” Koumyou finally said.

Ken’yuu’s heart leapt. His pulse doubled in a split second.

“What? What are you saying?” He glanced through the window at the bed. “You’ll finally let me join you in bed?”

Nobody answered.

“Are you offering?” He double-checked.

After a few tense moments, Goudai let out a huge sigh. Koumyou shot him a questioning glance, and he nodded assent. Ken’yuu got the distinct impression they had already discussed this, possibly—no, probably, now that he thought about it—probably before he was even invited on this trip.

“Do you or do you not want us to — help you?” Koumyou asked.

The decision was being left to Ken’yuu.

His nerves were almost convulsing and splitting themselves with joy and anticipation. If they could speak, they’d be singing Puccini arias.

He covered his bottom with his hands protectively and said, “I don’t want my ass torn up.”

Goudai barked out a bitter laugh, “You don’t want your ass torn up, but you’re about to run out the door and seek out sex with strangers. You haven’t really thought this through, have you?”

“I kind of lose my ability to think about things rationally when I get this horny,” Ken’yuu admitted.

Koumyou smiled sadly, and said, “We don’t want your ass torn up, either. That’s why we  offered. Frankly, I was just thinking of something light—just to take the edge off your hunger, not a full-course banquet: a hand-job, or maybe teaching you how to give a man a blow-job.”

Ken'yuu put an end to the equivocating, “I want to fuck or be fucked.”

“Forget that noise,” Goudai snorted. “Nobody with any brains is going to give some untrained and overexcited kid the keys to their Ferrarri. Before you get anywhere near anyone’s ass, you learn how to take it.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, he says.” Goudai looked fit to spit nails.

Ken’yuu finally figured it out: Goudai was really, really angry and Koumyou ... well, Koumyou looked unhappy. He supposed it was a shitty way of repaying them for this trip of a lifetime.

“I’m not thrilled about this, either. Your way of asking, Ken’yuu, is just—!” Koumyou rolled his eyes. ”Try that stunt on one of your random strangers and see how far it gets you. Except random strangers are the crux of the issue, aren’t they? Usually, you’re such a likeable boy. What happened?”

Ken’yuu knew he was being awful, but he’d already abandoned himself. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I already told you that the problem was coercion. Stop pushing.” Koumyou’s voice was unusually waspish and sharp. After a few minutes, he calmed down and, in an even tone, said, “If you decide you’re ready for adult sex tonight, I promise we’ll take it nice and slow. We’ll give you lots of time. If you don’t like something, all you have to do is tell us and we’ll stop. If you want to back out at any time, that will be okay. If you decide maybe not tonight, but change your mind tomorrow, that will also be okay. There will be no hurting, no recriminations, no humiliation.”

“And no repeat.” Goudai added. The look he gave Ken’yuu was of pure awareness. Koumyou might be the more generous and faith-filled one, the one most inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt, but Goudai was the wiser of the two. He knew what his young cousin was all about. He and Ken’yuu exchanged a silent contract through the eyes.

Inwardly, Ken’yuu had already torn off his clothes and tossed them every which way. Inwardly, he had already taken a victory lap around the room and somersaulted onto the bed, then bounced across it a half-dozen times, with his penis bumping along like a cheerleader’s pompom. Outwardly, he played it cool, sauntering over to the bed as elegantly as anyone could with a raging hard-on.

“Where are you going?” Goudai set his sandals neatly by the door. “It isn’t time for that yet.”

Ken’yuu’s face fell.

“First things first,” Goudai pointed to the washroom door and then, moved through it.

Ken’yuu looked confused.

“Shower before bed,” Koumyou explained. “Let’s clean the plumbing first, shall we?”

 

 

At the start, Ken'yuu was overexcited because he could barely believe his luck.

Then he discovered self-consciousness, the moment he realized that sex involved taking off clothes. Nakedness hadn’t caused him a second thought when he was out in that public square where any random stranger could see him, but here, as an expression of intimacy and a method of seduction, he felt way too exposed, like every flaw in his soul was being laid bare for Koumyou and Goudai to see. It was probably too late for that, but he would’ve liked for something nice to show off as well.

His gay male sex education until then consisted of porn videos, and the men in those videos had a very interesting protocol for clothing removal: clothes peeled off quickly, easily, effortlessly, like shucking skin from a banana. There were no awkward buttons, tube socks, unseemly dampnesses, pimples and hairs in odd places or, especially, bunchy and weird underpants. Male porn stars who didn’t go commando outright wore skimpy little speedos instead, or hot pants, or man-thongs, sometimes in leather, sometimes covered with glitter, sometimes covered with wild animal prints like tiger stripes or cheetah spots.

Ken'yuu wished he hadn’t worn his Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles boxer shorts that day. They didn’t bother him when he was stripping in La Piazza, or at the costume shop, but now that his body was on display for sex, they screamed “Mom packed my suitcase”, and he was sure that Goudai had suppressed a snort of laughter when he saw them. Koumyou’s eyes were dancing.

Their stripping technique was very methodical and to the point, the point being the removal of clothing, not grand seduction. They wore no embarrassing items of apparel, yet there was nothing about those items that screamed “I want sex right now” either, which surprised him. He figured they’d be into all kinds of kinky undergarments, especially Koumyou. Ken'yuu decided that the best thing to do would be to mimic them and not try to add some extra shimmies and booty shakes like the striptease artists he had watched on the web in the past. He was starting to feel as though the whole sex process was fraught with unspoken landmines, any of which could explode at any time, rupturing his dignity, whatever was left of it.

He cast furtive looks at his partners. Goudai’s body was in the medium-weight range, with powerful chiseled muscles and corded arteries. He didn’t wax, and hair grew on pretty much every inch of his body except the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Most of it, thankfully, was fairly fine, Ken'yuu realized, but it was plentiful and probably tickled. Koumyou was on the short side but also sported some serious musculature, only without the hair. Neither of them were erect, whereas Ken'yuu had sported an erection ever since he turned fifteen. Bang! After the turtle shorts, Ukoku discovered this was the second landmine and he had just stepped on it and it had just exploded.

Koumyou picked up on it. “Come on, let’s have a look at you.”

He pulled Ken’yuu close and turned him around so that he was hugging Ken'yuu from behind, while Ken'yuu faced the full-length mirror next to the shower.

“You have a nice, slender build. There isn’t a lot of muscle definition yet.” Koumyou slid his arms under Ken'yuu’s and ran his hands down the front of his body. “But the signs are there. Look at this nice flat tummy, taut as a drum. When you get closer to twenty, you’ll see the little ridges and crevasses start to show.”

Ken'yuu nearly passed out at the incredible wonderfulness of having warm, strong hands slide down his belly. He nearly choked out “Keep going!”—but Koumyou turned Ken'yuu to the side, and started to massage his arms. “Mm, I can tell you’re going to be a looker because there is already some lovely tone shaping up here.”

He must have noticed how tense Ken’yuu’s muscles were, because he spent a lot of time massaging them, and encouraging him to, “That’s right, relax. There’s no hurry. It’s so much better when you feel loose and comfortable.”

He squeezed, rubbed and stroked Ken’yuu’s neck, shoulders, arms and hands until they felt like jelly, then turned him around so that they faced each other. Koumyou hugged him close and started on his back, working his thumbs down the slightly fleshy ridge on each side of the spine, and then concentrating on the sacrum. He knew exactly where to rub and how much pressure to apply. Some of the pressure points in Ken’yuu’s sacrum held so much tightness and resistance, the lightest touch was like being stabbed. In fact, he was astounded that such a tiny area of space, barely the size of a dime, could produce so much startling and crystal-sharp pain.

“Scholar’s spine,” Koumyou explained. “It’s from sitting in a chair all day, or bending over a laptop computer.”

He nearly screamed when the pad of Koumyou’s thumb first skated over them, but Koumyou was very gentle and worked around them in little circles so that they slowly released, and they finally did it with a sensation of blossoms or cocoons bursting and petals expanding. Afterward, they practically purred with pleasure.

The next shock was when Ken’yuu realized how much releasing a few pressure points in the sacrum increased the blood flow into his pelvis. It was like a swarm of bees were congregating at the base of his cock, a strange electrical vibration that pooled in the area under his pubic hair. By the time Koumyou moved to Ken’yuu’s buttocks and started on the pressure points in and around them, Ken’yuu was moaning, just like—to his way of thinking—a whore.

“Oh, god, yes. That feels so good,” he started to pant. “So comfortable.”

“Do you really like it?” Koumyou’s fingers found the pressure points right under the rounded part where his buttocks connected to his thighs. “It is rather nice, isn’t it? I’ve always liked being touched like that myself.”

Ken’yuu failed to pick up on the hint. His legs almost gave way right there. He sagged against Koumyou, wondering where his strength went.

“It looks like that worked,” Goudai observed. “Not that I’m surprised: It always works on me.”

Ken’yuu watched, drowsy and fascinated, as Goudai’s cock started to grow hard. It was a purely sympathetic reaction brought about by the thought of Koumyou’s massages, since he certainly wasn’t being massaged, but it was a whole new concept for Ken’yuu, who never knew that the thought being touched could be almost as good as an actual physical massage.

“When you’re by yourself,” Koumyou’s voice anchored Ken’yuu, “try finding your pressure points and releasing them with your own hands. It will teach you how to touch your lover, or even just a friend who’s tense.”

“Mm?” Ukoku lifted his head and looked Koumyou in the eyes. He was the oddest combination of extremely horny and sleepy, even though he was sure Koumyou and Goudai had just tried to tell him something important—something he missed because he was so relaxed and comfortable.

“Think about it: If you are pressing so hard that it hurts you, then you know that pressure will be too much for your partner,” Koumyou explained, shifting from acupressure to rubbing strong, supportive circles up and down Kenyuu’s back and buttocks with the full flat of his hand. Where the acupressure massage was relaxing and releasing, this was invigorating and brought him back to a more normal awareness. “If it feels good when you touch yourself, then chances are, it will feel good for your partner, too. The only exceptions are injuries or certain touch sensitivities, but if you’re sensitive in turn, you’ll pick up on them immediately because your partner will tense up or give a little self-protective jump.”

Ken’yuu nodded. He decided he would spread the joy by touching Goudai’s cock, and so he suddenly reached over and gripped it the way he gripped his own penis when he was preparing to masturbate.

It was far too sudden and much too firm.

“Aah!” Goudai yelled, practically jumping out of his skin in a way that was not sexy at all.

“Sorry!” Ken’yuu whipped his hand back as though he’d been bitten by a cobra. “Sorry.”

“Right.” Koumyou grimaced. “So, learn from this: when you reach out and suddenly grab a man like that by his penis when he’s erect, for him it will probably feel like jumping to hot coffee straight after ice cream. Unless he’s into rougher handling and tells you he wants a firm handshake right away, take it slowly.”

His hand slid down, a slight brush of butterfly wings against Ken’yuu’s shaft.

“And gently.” Instead of going straight for Ken’yuu’s cock, he touched the skin where his thighs joined his hips and started petting it. “Only once your partner has become adjusted to the sensation of your hand moving down there is it time to introduce your hand to his cock, which can be done firmly.”

Ken’yuu shivered in anticipation of Koumyou’s hand on his cock, but the light strokes and touches didn’t home in on the target zone.

“Let’s take it into the shower, shall we?” Koumyou said with a perky smile, instead. “The water’s lovely.”

The warm and buttery soap-slide of hands across wet skin gave Ken’yuu the sensation of floating. His head was buzzing and foggy. He had to keep reminding himself that his feet were connected to the floor, especially after Koumyou started to pepper his neck with little sucks, nips and kisses.

Then, as Koumyou’s eyes smiled at him, he found his jaw held and softly stroked in Koumyou’s fingers so skilfully and persuasively that his lips parted of their own accord. His head tilted back, his eyes closed, and Koumyou’s tongue slipped into his mouth. He had never felt anything so intimate before. The touches and sweeps of tongue were utterly gentle and slow, yet managed to turn his bones to water and drain them out of the soles of his own feet. Ken’yuu never imagined that a kiss which happened in his mouth would be felt all the way down to his feet.

Then Koumyou sank to his knees in front of him.

“Please, please,” Ken’yuu moaned, his heart drumming with excitement at what appeared to be coming next. He almost followed Koumyou down, puddling onto the floor.

“Careful, there.” Goudai’s strong arms circled around his chest and held Ken’yuu up, just as he had saved him from a tumble into the fishponds at the Villa D’Este in Tivoli. “Are you going to be okay? Shall we slow down a bit? Or are you ready for more?”

“More,” Ken’yuu leaned into Goudai’s chest, his knees shaking as Koumyou started to lick and suck at the soft skin around his genitals. He vaguely heard the sound of a plastic lid popping open.

“Okay, I’m just getting ready to start stretching you,” Goudai explained.

All the energy in Ken’yuu’s body coalesced into a thrumming core of lava-hot sweetness between his thighs and against his lower abdomen. The touches and kisses left him drunken and woozy in the way that all the sparkling wine they drank that evening had not—so weakened and shaken, in fact, that the moment Koumyou sucked him fully into his warm, wet mouth just as Goudai pushed in that first lotion-primed finger up to the furthest joint, he came, quickly and convulsively.

Goudai’s arm supported him as he trembled and shook, and Koumyou kept at work until all the pulsing stopped.

While Ken’yuu dropped into a momentary sleep, Koumyou slowly stood and supported his weight. He woke soon enough to feel Goudai take advantage of the loosening effects of the orgasm to lubricate and open him up even more.

It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling Ken’yuu had ever experienced, but it wasn’t unpleasant, either. The only word he could think to describe it was unusual: like how a person floating in a boat feels, and yet does not feel, the pier which his boat bumps against. It was a definite pressure and stretch, but with acting and action removed. He had to relax into passivity, a tricky thing for him since he was used to directing everything that concerned other people with his body. He had to sit there and take it.

This is when he understood why Koumyou wanted to stop so early on, after just a hand-job. Looking back, he realized it was stupid to think that he would’ve been cheated out of something, as though they were depriving him of the ‘real stuff’. Still, he looked forward to more.

“Oh!”

Goudai had just added another finger. That was definitely not a comfortable stretch.

Koumyou, anticipating this, distracted Ken’yuu. He leaned his back against the shower stall tiles and slowly slid down to the floor, his long hair clinging to the wall all frowzy and in shambles behind him, his thighs spread wide and showing off all the glory in between. As Ken’yuu’s eyes widened in surprise, he theatrically pulled out a condom, tore the pouch open with his teeth, and eased the latex cover over his cock.

Goudai leaned over his ear and murmured, “He wants to teach you how to give him head, and I want to see you taking it.”

And in that moment, under Goudai’s fingers, Ken’yuu felt a shimmering, shivering rush of bubbly something or other flit between his testicles and his cock and realized that he was growing aroused again.

“Did he touch something lovely?” Koumyou asked. “Maybe he’ll find it again.”

Ken’yuu had had something else in mind besides giving Koumyou a blowjob, even if Goudai had already forbidden what he really wanted, but he was willing to go with the flow until his chance came—and he earnestly believed his chance would come. With a mind full of starlight, Ken’yuu allowed himself to be lowered onto all fours. He was so busy doing his best to ignore the taste of latex and provide service with tongue and lips according to Koumyou’s breathy instructions, that he was completely distracted the moment Goudai entered his body.

“Oh!”

Ken’yuu jerked his head up, dropping Koumyou. The head of Goudai’s cock had fully slipped inside him before he felt, fully, the weight and stretch and slight burning ease, sinking into the sensation. Then, he clamped down. Goudai instantly stopped, waiting for Ken’yuu to adjust.

For a moment, he panicked, frightened that Goudai would never fully fit, but then Koumyou’s fingers caressed his cheek. “Can you try to swallow me, please?”

Sucking huge gasps of breath through his nose, breathing through the stretch, Ken’yuu gave a little jerk of the head as a yes. Then, determined, he lowered his head again and sucked Koumyou back into his mouth, trying to swallow as much as he could.

It wasn’t very much. It felt like he would choke if he took it in any further, but in that moment, Goudai plunged the rest of the way with one surprisingly easy and fluid motion. There was no pain, but there wasn’t a whole lot of any other feeling either, except around the opening which was stretched to the edge of comfort, and now twitched and fluttered, begging for the sensation of friction.

Before Goudai could start to thrust, Ken’yuu swung his hips. He was gratified to hear a quavering drawn-out hiss and swearing in response. It pleased him so much that he started to take control of the pace, moving, shifting his pelvis, riding Goudai’s cock to the best of his ability, and then synchronizing the bobbing of his head over Koumyou in time. Before much longer, he felt his hips seized in the man’s huge hands and held in place.

“He’s trying not to come too soon.” Koumyou explained with a wolfish grin.

Ken’yuu grinned back.

Koumyou’s face sobered as a new idea occurred to him.

“Hang on a second!” He struggled to his feet, pushing Ken’yuu and Goudai back.

“Koumyou, we’re attached here!” Ken’yuu heard Goudai yelp, and he vaguely realized that Koumyou was trying to lift and raise him to his feet.

When this effort received incoherent chokes and cries of protest, Koumyou said, “You’ve got to see this.”

He turned and nudged the pair so that they could all face the full-length mirror together, to watch Ken’yuu and Goudai. It wasn’t easy to shift positions so radically with another man buried up to the hilt inside, but slowly, with Koumyou’s help, Ken’yuu edged and minced and slowly eased his way around without injuring anyone, baby step by baby step, until they were out of the shower stall at last.

The whole process was so ridiculous, Ken’yuu started to laugh, while Koumyou blushed.

“It’s not that funny,” Koumyou protested, grinning. “Is it?”

“What isn’t funny?” Goudai asked. “What flies feel like when they’re in the middle of mating and a big bloody bird tries to eat them, so they have to move?”

“Can’t fly.” Ken'yuu pointed out. “Can only galumph, like an elephant ... only very, very delicately.”

“No, it’s this: Isn’t that gorgeous?” Koumyou swiped an arm’s-length of steam off the mirror, and assisted Ken’yuu in placing his hands up against it in order to support himself in that semi-upright stance. “If I was a bastard, I’d take a picture and blow it up for the world to see: Ken’yuu’s First.”

Ken’yuu saw his lithe boyish body bent over in a submissive half-crouch, his back arched, his legs splayed and stiff. His jaw was slack with swollen, wet lips and cheeks flushed dark and vivid. His eyes were not vivid, but glazed and dreamy, and the tousled straws of his wet hair lay in sixes and sevens across his face.

Behind him, the very adult, very male body of Goudai started sliding thick and sure within him. God! He looked like a king, like a triumphant emperor availing himself of the spoils of war—so tall, straight and proud, his massive chest jutting out, dominant. From now on, he knew, and Goudai knew, that Goudai could have him anytime he wanted. It felt so incredible that he would’ve simply hiked himself up higher in offering. Ken’yuu knew, in some other part of his mind, he was disconnecting and Goudai would certainly bring him back to earth later, but for now, he luxuriated in the strangely mortifying, but at the same time, satisfying daydream, and almost came again.

Almost ... almost ... he shut his eyes and slowly breathed through the sense of dirtiness and pleasure ... relaxing ... relaxing 

Ken’yuu was so engrossed in the effort not to come, let alone the sight of Goudai moving in him, and of his own delighted reactions, that he never even noticed what Koumyou was up to. Koumyou had been a very busy man. Before Ken’yuu noticed, he’d lined himself up behind Goudai. Goudai’s face contorted and a soft cry of pleasure burst from his lips as his neck was bitten and he was penetrated. Realization dawned for Ken’yuu, along with surprise, for he’d always assumed Koumyou would rather catch than pitch.

And with it, despair.

He was thunderstruck. As his heart clunked and banged in his chest like a washing machine thrown off its spin, Ken’yuu realized he wasn’t ready to fuck anyone, let alone his cousin’s golden lover. He wasn’t even ready to fuck Goudai, whom he didn’t want nearly as much.

They weren’t equals. He was too much of a lightweight, too young, too inexperienced, too foolish for his own good, too selfish and self-centered. All this came to him in an instant, and more:

Koumyou and Goudai had tried to protect him from this, he belatedly realized. Like a sulky brat, he’d threatened to harm himself and they had had to give in to his manipulation, but worse, he had squandered the chance they gave him. They had been completely generous, but he had given nothing back. Even their praise was offered gently, to protect his spirit. He had been arrogant enough to think the praise was his due, the price and sway accorded to youth and physical prettiness. He had honestly thought such trivial things gave him power over them. Except, in their act of surrender and kindness, the blinders were stripped off and Ken’yuu’s ego was laid bare for him to see. The reality was ugly, humiliating.

And because Ken’yuu was only sixteen years old, these realizations hit him like a high speed train. So his head bowed with humiliation and he fought to keep from breaking down. He blink-blink-blinked at the well of moisture collecting in his eyelids, furious at his body’s betrayal, forbidding it to insult his pride, but he was only a kid and hadn’t learned to detach from the darker side of his emotions. He hadn’t learn to hide his strongest feelings.

As soon as that first tear which would not be suppressed tumbled down his cheek, everything stopped. It stopped like the instant before the Big Bang. Nothing had ever turned on a dime faster and more absolutely. Koumyou pulled out of Goudai, and Goudai out of Ken’yuu. The snap of condoms being pulled off was followed by the sudden end of water flowing as the shower was turned off, then Goudai held his cousin close and snug in his arms and Koumyou bundled him into a soft, warm robe and gently squeezed his hair with a towel.

Goudai continued to hold him and stroke his hair as he buried his face in his chest and sobbed, “Sorry ... sorry ...  sorry ... sorry for being such a prick. Sorry for thinking I was such hot shit.”

Each sob felt like it was pulling a crime out of his body, letting another horror of self-realization float away. He hadn’t released so much emotion since he was a little boy. He felt like a little boy, now, like he was three years old, but it was okay because his cousin and his cousin’s lover had vowed to protect him. They were strong enough.

He felt Koumyou’s chaste, forgiving kisses pressed against his temples, and then Goudai released him into Koumyou’s arms with one of his own strong kisses. Koumyou led him over to their bed and he was pulled into it. Koumyou stretched out beside him, while Goudai made them some hot tea. Ken’yuu could only swallow a few sips before sinking back into the pillows with a few last shuddering sobs. Then Goudai stretched out on his other side, the covers were pulled over, the lights switched off and he lay between the two of them, comforted.

And then he discovered that sleeping between two men in a bed was like being the slice of bread in a toaster. There was so much perspiration, their sheets felt wetter than his jeans after putting them on in the canal, and he was cooking in the heat. Yet it was still better than sleeping alone, and from the arms and legs wrapped around him, nobody wanted him to leave. So he decided to sweat it out, and soon fell into the deepest sleep he’d had since arriving in that ancient and knowing country.

 

 

But the next morning Ken’yuu buried his face in his pillow and refused to move. He lay there wishing he could die as the full weight of his actions from the previous day buried him in a bog of shame, shame, shame and more shame. Koumyou was running a strong warm palm over his back to comfort him, but all he could do was groan.

Goudai finally chuckled, “It’s not that bad, kid. It’s only sex. Jeez! You’re blowing this up to mountainous proportions, making it something much worse than it is.”

Ken’yuu felt both relieved and a little put off by this.

“I thought I was ready,” he wallowed. “I wasn’t.”

Neither of the men rubbed it in with a ‘No shit, Sherlock!’, but Ken’yuu could see that Goudai was thinking it. He could also see that Goudai didn’t think it was that big a deal. He was already out of bed and pulling on his clothes.

“You knew I wasn’t ready. You told me, but I kept pushing and pushing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s something you can’t know or understand until you’ve gone through it.” Ken’yuu appreciated how Koumyou remained in place to pet him and talk things out, since that was what he wanted and needed. “The whole way sex changes things, how emotional and intimate it can be, and how it strips away—or it _can_ strip away all our barriers and illusions. It doesn’t always. If you’re lucky, it does. So, I guess that makes you lucky.”

Ken’yuu blushed. “I’m glad it was you.”

“We are, too, given the alternative. I have to say, I’m still concerned about how willing you are to throw yourself into harm’s way. That was not a mature decision. I take it you’re aware of what you put us through.”

“Sorry.” Ken’yuu released the pillow and buried his face in Koumyou’s stomach.

Koumyou had been making small movements toward getting out of bed, but he stopped and waited, continuing to stroke Ken’yuu’s hair until he was ready. “Well, there’s no harm done, is there? Goudai and I are fine. The question is, are you going to be okay?”

Ken’yuu hugged him tightly, trying to convey all his gratitude and love with that embrace.

He was holding on so tightly, he never noticed the knock on the door and only vaguely heard the muffled words, “Yoo-hoo! Hello, boys. We’ve come to surprise you!”

He remembered the mad scramble, the leaping, the dressing, the frantic whispers, the crazy way they tried to rearrange things to look like what they weren’t.

Ken’yuu was filled with dread. His stomach contracted with black fear when he heard the second knock and his mother’s voice warbling in the corridor, “Ken’yuu, it’s Mama. Goudai, it’s Aunty. Is this your room?”

He heard his father tell her, “It’s the one on the itinerary they sent us.”

“I know, but I told you we should’ve double-checked with the concierge first. You’re always rushing me.”

“Then the surprise would’ve been spoiled.”

He tried to make his voice sound light as he answered, “Yeah, mom, you’ve got the right place. But Goudai’s the only one up and dressed right now. Just give us a second to change and put the room in order.”

When the door finally opened, happy greetings and hugs were exchanged, and there was breezy talk about the decision to fly out and synchronize their plans. This was followed with a quick evaluation of the room’s comforts, the kitchenette, the tiny bathroom, the balcony and, finally, the realization that it had only one double bed (although he’d always previously slept on the couch cushions on the floor, whenever they shared a studio suite.)

Ken’yuu would always remember the moment his mother’s smile slipped and his father’s face grew grim. He could mark the very second his life changed by the Campanile bells tolling ten, as parents exchanged a look, and the terrible cold which filled his body as their suspicions hardened to certainty.

There were no outright accusations. There was no fuss. There was only frightening, freezing civility and a few choice, clipped words that said everything clearly without actually saying anything of meaning:

“The room’s kinda small, isn’t it? How does this couch pull out, anyway?”

“No, I’ve decided I would not like a coffee after all, thank you very much.”

“Would it have cut the Grand Tour too short to swing for the cost of an extra bedroom?”

Ken’yuu could tell there was something wrong, and _knew_ essentially what the problem was, but he wasn’t sure how his parents had it figured out, or how much they had read or misread into the situation. He couldn’t stand the feeling of uncertainty and kept glancing at Goudai and Koumyou for visual cues about how to proceed, but they were playing it utterly cool and self-possessed.

At last, there was polite, but utterly emphatic insistence as Ken’yuu was led away from Goudai and Koumyou.

“I want breakfast, Ken’yuu.” His mother’s smile looked so stiff and unnatural. “You will come with us, now. I want to hear all about your trip. We will leave your cousin and his ... friend in peace while we take a little time alone together to catch up.”

While Ken’yuu’s father gripped his arm like he was drowning and his mother tugged him out of the suite, he caught a glimpse over his shoulder of Goudai as he sank onto the bed, weighted, his face filled with stern regret and sadness.

His father peeled off in the hotel lobby and insisted Ken’yuu and his mother proceed to breakfast without him. Ken’yuu’s head swiveled to watch him pull out his cellphone and flitter fingers over the screen as his mother tugged on his arm and out the door.

His mother took the lead, sticking to main routes where tourists thronged, even though he tried to show her the shortcuts. She insisted on moving through the suffocating crush, although she was also distracted, sending and receiving texts on her cellphone. Nor would she listen to him when he said they shouldn’t sit outside at café tables by the restaurant which Goudai had called a tourist trap, that there was an outrageous minimum charge, and there was a much better place just around the corner and down a narrow passage. Lastly, there was the absentminded way she kept peppering him with questions.

“And after the _Costeria Almalfitana,_ where did you stay? And did you visit Pompeii? And did you go to the Holy See?”

“Yes, Ma. We went to all the World Heritage Sites. We did all the tourist things. We took lots and lots of pictures, just like I wrote and sent in all my emails.”

“Ah, that’s nice.” Her eyes kept darting over to the canal, as though waiting for a sign, and she swirled the ice cubes around the tall glass of orange juice just a little too noisily with a stir-stick, as her long-nailed fingers gripped, white-knuckled. “And how was the Pope?”

“Huh?” Ken’yuu gaped.

She quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting.

“Fine,” he finally answered. “I guess.”

“Must’ve been nice to see something like that.” She stirred and stirred and stirred.

“Right, but it wasn’t nearly as fantastic as when the sky rained fire, the cliffs split open and the dead rose out of their graves.”

Stirring, stirring, stirring.

“Mom? Where’s Dad? Are we waiting for something?”

She turned her head back to him, eyes wide and unseeing. “Hmm?”

Ken’yuu jumped to his feet, heart pounding, the wrought iron chair falling back behind him with a clatter and clang.

“You sit down, young man!” Her tone grew imperious.

Instead, he bolted, leaping over railings and balustrades as strangers cried out in surprise and shock around him. He heard his mother calling after him and struggling to follow, but the waiter cornered her, _“Signora, si prega di pagare.”_ [“Madam, if you please, pay ….”]

He pelted back the way they came through the twisting arcades, barreling through crowds of indignant sight-seekers, skidding over lanes still wet from the previous tide’s floods. In the quieter bylane near his hotel, his eyes met those of a marble statue of Saint Sebastian, whose shrine was set in a corner alcove at shoulder-height above the street. He was depicted dressed in only a loincloth, his body pierced with iron arrows. Ken’yuu could feel his heartbeat in his ears, loud and like the only sound in the world, eclipsing even the sound of his footfalls and heaving breath, as he noticed how the rust from Sebastian’s arrows had bled down over the centuries and stained the white stone as though flowing from real wounds — but frozen, forever. A white pigeon flew from the statue, and he turned the corner just in time to see a lot of policemen gathered around the front of the hotel.

Freezing cold. It was a blazing hot and humid summer day in Venice and he was shivering with cold.

Ken’yuu’s father was waiting for him at the entrance, undoubtedly warned by a text from his mother.

“Ken’yuu!” He tried to stop his son, but Ken’yuu shook him off and tore up the stairs to the suite he had shared.

The room was filled with both uniformed policemen and investigators in suits. There was no sign of Goudai or Koumyou. Ken’yuu pushed his way into the room. One of the police was seated at the writing table where Goudai’s laptop was set up. Onscreen was the picture of Ken’yuu, naked, standing in La Piazza with San Marco at dawn behind him.

Another man in a lab-coat was coming out of the bathroom, carrying the wastepaper basket in one hand and tweezers, with a used condom from the previous night squeezed between them, in the other.

“Where are they? Where’s Goudai?” Ken'yuu shouted. “Where’s Koumyou?”

He whirled around. The police were ignoring him, except the one that was trying to haul him out of the room. This didn’t surprise him, because he couldn’t speak Italian and didn’t know how to ask, but his father had followed him and said nothing.

“Where are they, Dad?” Ken'yuu could feel men tugging and pushing him.

The only thing his father did was to shift his eyes to the balcony for a split second.

Ken’yuu shook off the men who were trying to restrain him, and he raced out the balcony doors. He looked down, just in time to see a shape in handcuffs and shackles being pushed into a police vessel.

“No! Wait!” he shouted, but the engine started and the boat was pulling away.

“They didn’t do anything,” he shouted at his dad. “Why are you doing this to them?”

His father shook his head.

“Fuck!” Ken’yuu screamed at him. “I can’t believe you.”

He tried to chase the boat. He climbed the railing ignoring the shouts from the officers behind him, jumped from the balcony into the canal. He tried to swim after the boat, even as he heard a gondolier shout something at him—probably something rude from the hand gesture that went with it—and had to dive under another passing craft. When he re-surfaced, he was so disoriented, he didn’t know which direction to swim, and it would’ve been a hopeless attempt even had the lanes and piers not been paved with police. He didn’t even make it as far as the Grand Canal before he was fetched out of the water like a drowned rat.

He was too miserable to even flip the bird at the officer who plugged his nose and swished the air while letting out a stream of Italian patter that included the English words for ‘shit’ and ‘puke.’ The only thing he would say for himself was, “They didn’t do anything wrong.”

The rest of his time was spent in iterations of a nightmare he’d had during his last fitful sleep in Italy: _Il Paradiso_ glimmered with Goudai and Koumyou in it, somewhere just beyond his outstretched, reaching fingers, while his parents and the police kept tugging, pushing, dragging him back into the eighth sphere of hell. He stopped caring whether he lived or died while he was whisked by train back to Rome and then placed on a flight back home.

 

 

**ii. Archeology of the Void  
**

 

 

Given the natural inclination to sleep in or wake up—which is to say that he had forgotten to replenish the bottle of port under the sink in the kitchen after his previous midnight conversation with the moon ... where was he? Oh, yes, the first storey of his latest squat. Since he didn’t have a hangover, Koumyou woke up at four-thirty on that cloudless June morning, with the sky only just lightened and the scent of roses from the vines which crawled up the face of the building, fat beauties the colour of good wine. He rose, threw open the massive shutters and inhaled deeply.

Roses that smelled like roses; he had almost forgotten such scents existed. He’d been a child when he last smelled them, a child given to wandering alone by wild briars in fallow fields and woods. The more hybridized and special roses of his adult life had lost that scent, a side effect of flowers the size of dinner plates that didn’t need the support of nature to breed anymore, ergo no need to attract bees, ergo no need to create pollen, or nectar, or scent. He supposed there was a tiny lesson in there for him, but he couldn’t quite grab onto it, apart from how that first deep breath, energizing him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, was a daily reminder of how wonderful it felt to be alive. Unlike hybrid roses, however, he had a scent and, after a night of above-average heat, it was a little funky.

There were no other sounds at that hour to interfere with the waves lapping and the birds singing their hearts out, certainly not the usual sub-bass vibration of traffic from the _Autoroute de Leman,_ and there wasn’t yet enough smog to interfere with— _deep inhalation_ —the exquisite smells of ... what was that, anyway? Oh, right! Roses. So many roses blooming everywhere. This was definitely one of the rosiest places he had ever lived.

The lake was shrouded in mist.

At his feet extended a tiny balcony full of wrought iron curlicues, more of a plant railing than a true balcony, really, and supposedly incapable of holding an adult man’s weight, although Koumyou had tested it and it held him just fine. Many mismatched terracotta and glazed clay pots of herbs and salad greens he had grown from seed rested on it. He grabbed his towel, his set of keys and his denim shirt and jumped off the balcony onto the quay below. The drop wasn’t far, only about six or seven feet off the street. He strode across the narrow cobblestone roadway, set down his things on a massive slab of rock, peeled off his jeans and jumped into the lake for an early morning bathe.

Usually, he only did this at night after everyone had gone to sleep, but the transition from being a late night to an early morning person was a seasonal thing and likely to last until the sun started pulling back into the southern tropics. A few last glacial currents from the spring run-off raked his skin with icy fingernails, but his body grew accustomed and the lake soon felt warm, even though it was shaded from the light of dawn by the hills behind the city.

Usually nothing could induce him to simply jump into a natural body of water so early in the summer, but while the grand Beaux Arts building he now called home was bejewelled with luxurious details—spacious corridors with pillars and caryatids, parcel-gilt and crystal chandeliers, black and white marble floors and staircases which swept in attractive curves into a formal lobby, huge windows—plumbing and modern wiring were almost non-existent.

As he gently paddled over to the bronze statues of the nymphs riding their seahorses, he passed a few swans, silent sentinels now so used to humans that they didn’t stir, let alone bother to float away. After a nice long soak, with the night sweats thoroughly rinsed away, he turned and swam back.

It was as he pulled himself out of the water, long hair clinging to his wet and naked skin like weeds and water streaming in rivulets down his torso and thighs, that he first felt the prickling sensation of someone staring at him. His rotated on his heels, certain he would send the spy on his or her way with a few tart words, when he spotted a large plastic tub floating past, the sort which fishermen used at the market to cart their wares. Instead of pickerel or bass, however, a golden-haired toddler peered over the edge of the tub, lips closed and silent, fat little fingers clutching the rim, eyes filled with speech. The only time Koumyou had seen eyes so old was when he regarded his own reflection in the mirror.

 _« Salut! »_ he called out to the baby. _« À qui appartiens-tu? »_ [“To whom do you belong?”]

Across the lake, the sun had risen enough in the east that the snow-covered peaks of _Les Haute Alpes_ to the west had turned bright pink, rising above the mist. It would be about seven o’clock before the streets of Vevey would fill with light, however, sheltered as they were under the eastern bluffs. There were no signs of other human life stirring anywhere.

Koumyou swam over and pulled the tub into shore. He and the child stared at each other, Koumyou’s head a complete blank as to what he should do or say next.

“That’s quite the haul you’ve reeled in,” a voice floated down to him.

After a startled jump, he swiveled to face the source, and caught sight of a neighbour, apparently, or someone visiting the set of suites next to his. He had scruffy, dirty blond hair in a tossed salad sort of cut hacked with razors, multiple piercings through his ears and eyebrow, and tattoos up and down his arms and neck. He wore a Union Jack T-Shirt with a slogan screen-printed across it. It was the first time Koumyou had ever seen or heard him, although the man had addressed him confidently in English, which presumed some foreknowledge. Most natives attempted French, German or Italian first.

“Is he yours?”

“God, no!” The stranger laughed. “But you might want to throw a towel over your rod and tackle before the Park Rangers arrest you.”

“Sorry, my– what?”

“I’ve been watching you, so I know you aren’t a kiddy-diddler, but honestly–”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” Koumyou quickly reached over and dragged on his jeans, a task made more difficult because his skin was still quite wet, which set off a warning thud in his heart: this was déja vu. As he pulled on his shirt and sandals, the child climbed out of the plastic bin, sat on a rock and watched him, hands resting on his knees.

Water ... morning mist ... midsummer ... wet jeans  He broke into a cold sweat.

“Do you speak?” Koumyou asked the child. _« Parles-tu Français ... er, non? Sprechen Sie Deutsches ... nein? Italiano? »_

The child continued to stare.

Koumyou turned back at the stranger on the balcony next to his. “Do you know of anyone in the area who has a youngster they might miss?”

The stranger, pulled his sunglasses down his nose and peered over them as if to ask, ‘Do I look like a family man?’

“What does one do in such situations?” Koumyou swallowed hard. “Like what you would do if this happened to you?”

“It wouldn’t,” the stranger replied flatly, and after watching Koumyou squirm and scratch his head for several minutes, relented. “But if it ever did, the first thing would be to take the child to the authorities, who would be in a better position to find its real parents than me.”

“Oh, that’s a very good idea.”

“But only if I was here legally,” the stranger added. “Otherwise I’d avoid authorities like they were the plague.”

The speed with which Koumyou’s face fell said everything.

Someone from inside the apartment called out to the stranger on the balcony. Koumyou heard the voice, a voice which sounded vaguely familiar, and the curiosity in the question, but not the words.

“Oh, it’s some guy, that queer old neighbour of yours, found a little kid floating in the lake,” the stranger called back over his shoulder. “He’s trying to figure out what to do with him.”

He turned back to look down on Koumyou again. There was something unsettling and predatory about his smile.

“And what would you do if you weren’t?” Koumyou asked, his smile at half-mast. “Here legally, I mean?”

“Then I’d leave the kid alone, like he had the plague. Not my job. Not my problem.”

The smile disappeared completely . “How about if I took him to the gendarmes and left him with them without any explanation? Just dropped him off on their doorstep, so to speak, and then  um, skedaddled.”

“Skedaddle?” The stranger’s laugh said everything— what anyone would think. Koumyou’s shoulders sagged, spirits completely deflated. Of course a strange man couldn’t take a lost toddler to the police without expecting to answer any questions.

Stymied, Koumyou held his hand out to the young boy, prepared to usher him the long way around the complex of apartments to the main entrance under an old city archway. He felt the stranger’s eyes on him, thoughts and feelings inscrutable behind his glasses, just as the shape of another person appeared on the balcony.

“Who is it?” The second man asked.

The voice hit Koumyou in the chest. He knew it from the past.

Startled, he glanced up and his eyes met the other man’s at the exact same moment.

The past reeled through him like a car spinning into oncoming traffic. Koumyou would never forget that face. Although older and harder, the same soul still gazed through those same dark eyes. The hair was longer and greasier, but it still fell around the face with the familiar shape and curls. The skin had lost the glow of youth, and it was blanched with shock, but it stretched across the same high cheekbones and broad jaw. That face was unmistakable.

“Koumyou.” He saw, rather than heard, the man whisper.

“You know this guy?” The unpleasant stranger with the dirty, straw-coloured hair turned back to his flat-mate.

“Ken’yuu, is that you?” Koumyou called up to the balcony. He didn’t really need the answer confirmed. It was just his way of stating the obvious.

“‘Ken’yuu’, who’s that?” The stranger laughed, and then, after a long glance at his companions, gloated in an insinuating tone, “Well, well, well, it’s a reunion.”

“Hang on!” Ken’yuu threw a cigarette butt over their heads into the lake. Koumyou heard it hiss as it hit the surface. “These rooms connect with the basement. Give me a second to get down there and you can come in through my place. That’ll save you a journey.”

Koumyou nodded.

“And you,” he heard Ken’yuu say to the stranger. “It’s time to hit the road. C’mon, beat it.”

There were returning protests, which faded as the men moved back into the apartment.

Next to the road, there was a sunken casement with a wrought iron cage around it, which was where Koumyou presumed Ken’yuu would let him and his toddling flotsam in. Apart from the property taxes which had made the building too expensive for the owners to operate except as a loss leader, the entire building required extensive renovations to bring it up to code, which was why the owners had entered into this symbiotic relationship with various squatters.

But right now, Koumyou had bigger problems. He wondered what he would say to Ken’yuu, whose presence in that suite was too unlikely to be a coincidence. Ken’yuu had obviously moved there with the express purpose of living right next door, but what for? Koumyou was a little frightened to learn why. He had also looked shocked and surprised, but Koumyou didn't buy it for a minute: shocked and surprised because he hadn't planned for them to meet so soon, perhaps, but not because he hadn't planned for them to meet at all.

He was startled from his thoughts by a terrific screeching and _scraawwking_ as Ken’yuu struggled to pry open windows that hadn’t been touched in years. A furious clatter of chains and locks and rusty ironwork followed as he threw open the cage. The sound was like the torments of the damned, and Koumyou watched the boy’s eyes grow wide and fearful.

Koumyou led the child across _Quai Maria-Belgia_ , and the child willingly followed, but stopped at being lifted into the cellar and, struggling and crying, flatly refused to let the dark-haired stranger pull him in. Koumyou understood. From where they stood, the window looked like a black gash of a mouth on the underside of the building, the iron bars like nasty sharp teeth stained with blood-coloured rust. Even he found it sinister.

“I’d better go first,” he explained to Ken’yuu, who nodded and offered a hand. Koumyou could’ve done without sliding down the man’s body quite so intimately on the way in. He wondered if Ken’yuu could hear how loudly his heart thumped through the long, slow slide. They were pressed against each other rather snugly for a few seconds, but he didn’t fall, he didn’t scrape or pierce anything against sharp rusty iron, and as Ken’yuu had no expression on his face, Koumyou decided not to read too much into it. He probably should’ve; this was Ken’yuu after all, but he wanted to avoid an archaeological excavation into their past.

Once inside, he turned and held his arms out to the little boy, letting them extend past the bars, showing him it was okay; he hadn’t been eaten by some sort of evil Basement Dragon, and even if they had and were about to pass through its bowels, at least it didn’t require some sort of foul digestive process—he hoped. His hair, although wet and darker than usual, was still light enough to serve as a beacon. The boy, with only a little hesitance, stooped under the casement and allowed Koumyou to pull him through a mass of cobwebs into the gloom. Koumyou held him in his arms for a minute or two as their eyes adjusted and thought it was a very good thing that he really was as trustworthy as the boy had intuited.

“All safe and sound?” Ken’yuu asked.

“It appears so. And it’s nice to see y—Oh!” Koumyou set the boy down.

In most respects, the cellar was still like a cellar: the walls were of old, stained concrete; a fretwork of exposed pipes intersected the ceiling; a massive octopus-style coal-burning furnace occupied the center of the room like an enormous tree; and the smell of mold was inescapable. Once Koumyou’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, however, he saw that most of the cavern had been fitted out as a music studio. In the shadows, an enormous drum kit had been set up, flanked by four different electric and two acoustic guitars on stands, some horns and saxophones, a keyboard and various amplifiers as well as speakers and soundboards. Posters of rock musicians were taped to the walls, and there was a silk-screened sign which looked like graffiti spray paint of the name ‘Banri and the Sex Weasels.’

“A stage name? You’re Banri?”

“Christ, no!” Ken’yuu looked appalled. Then he started to laugh. “The Sex Weasels is a pretty hokey name for a cover band, but this is a derivative bunch. Oh!—I did change my name. The new one’s Ukoku.”

“Ukoku.” Koumyou let the vowels flit across his lips, savouring them, as he turned around to take in the scene around him. “Black crow. It suits you, like night flying in on black-feathered wings, _sub umbra_ , under the shadows.”

He hadn’t intended for his words to hurt, but from the expression in the other man’s eyes, they sailed right over and stabbed him in the heart. There was so much they had to say to each other, but Koumyou had no idea where to start, and didn’t even want to.

“Phenomenal soundproofing in this place.” Ukoku shrugged, turning away, pointing to the walls. “Not so strange when you consider the place had to be dug out of clay. It’s some twenty meters thick beyond the foundation and retaining walls. Just had to insulate the ceiling with a bit of styrofoam and carpet. The band can play all night and nothing will escape this dungeon.”

“You don’t say!” Koumyou was thoroughly impressed. While it was true that he hadn’t heard the band rehearsing, he did recall the sensation of tremors under his feet and water in his glass rippling which spoke of sub-bass vibrations, and wondering where it came from, and if that section of the Alps was prone to earthquakes.

“Nothing—okay, the drunkards sometimes turn into hooligans when I kick them out in the morning, and they rage and bleat and kick up a havoc. Banri’s the worst. He’s the one you met.”

Koumyou turned to him in surprise.

“The one  upstairs?” He pointed up.

“Yeah, that’s him. Complete junkie. Can’t stand the bastard. If he keeps it up, I’m going to find myself another gig. Won’t wait around for the inevitable train wreck, you know? But you can’t hear a peep from the studio itself.”

“I’ve never been in that situation with the hooliganism,” Koumyou admitted. “But it must be frustrating.”

Ukoku peered at him over his sunglasses. “I’ve seen your name around. Still an artist–”

“Ah-hah, so that’s how you found me.” Koumyou nodded. “Yes, I’ve been enjoying modest success. My latest art show opened at the Civic in Lausanne last week, and the whole Canton has been papered with the posters. You may have seen them at a bus shelter near you.”

“Yes, I have—although you’re no longer working in photography, I see.” With that small observation, Ukoku had paid Koumyou back in spades for his earlier remark. It felt as though the breath was being squeezed out of his chest.

“No,” he finally let out a little laugh that was more like a gasp. “No more photography.”

“You ... you coated the covered the gallery walls with honey and bees.” The emotions seemed close to the surface for Ukoku as well. He was struggling to fill the silence with words, any words.

“Handblown glass tiles which resembled honey,” Koumyou nodded. “To which I attached glass honeybees.”

“Thousands of them, if I recall.” Ukoku looked impressed, as Koumyou realized, with a slight start, how attractive he still was. The man’s hair was thick and glossy, in spite of needing a good wash, and he had a trim figure under all those clothes held together by safety pins. His voice was so gentle—so soft and achingly gentle—as he asked, “How much time did that take you?”

“Don’t know. I was at it all winter anyway, but I really started several years ago.”

Koumyou had wondered how long it would take before the things they needed to say would be said. He had so many questions to ask the younger man, but he was terrified of the answers.

“You gave the show an unusual name, too. What was it called again?”

Koumyou was about to answer, but tiny fingers clutched at his jeans and derailed his train of thoughts.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s this way,” Ukoku beckoned to a staircase. As they tramped through Ukoku’s living quarters, Koumyou could help but notice how clean and tidy the place was, at complete odds with Ukoku’s punk-rock appearance.

With this, he suddenly realized that his own place wasn’t exactly child-friendly. How was he going to keep a little boy safe in an apartment filled with shards of glass, clear resin epoxies, lead grout, crucibles and blow torches? One thing was for sure, he would have to stop letting his work migrate behind him into every room, a realization which brought him face-to-face with how unsuitable he was to look after any small and vulnerable being, not that he had attractive alternatives.

“Oh, man!” He rubbed his temples where the seed of a migraine had germinated.

Ukoku’s chuckle followed him into the corridor.

“Tame the fox,” he declared. “And you get to look after it.”

“Sorry?”

“Tame the — I was paraphrasing _The Little Prince_. Seems to be a popular book around these parts,” Ukoku mumbled, rubbing his head. “Not with everyone, apparently. I assumed you would know what I was talking about.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, well, the author went to school in the next Canton just over,” an arm waved roughly southwest, “and, hey, it’s a good bedtime story for little children.”

“Ah!” Koumyou’s face lit up. “What was it called again?”

_“The Little Prince.”_

“And what’s it about?”

“A little prince.”

“Right, but–”

“The usual stuff small kids like. You know: planet-wide volcanic explosions, snakes which eat whole elephants, plane crashes in the desert, abandoned friends ” The man’s voice—Koumyou couldn’t get used to thinking of him as a fully grown man—petered away as Koumyou’s chin started tilting upwards. “I suppose this a good time to mention my fees for babysitting, if you ever need them.”

He was obviously kidding, but the little boy was now tugging on Koumyou’s arm as though he couldn’t pull him away from Ukoku fast enough.

“I may have to get back to you about that.” Koumyou yelled over his shoulder as he was led away.

“Don’t. Seriously, don’t.” Ukoku’s laughter followed them as they padded over the chequered floors. He continued to watch them as Koumyou fetched a set of skeleton keys out from his jeans, and even as they walked into the neighbouring apartment.

The first to close his door, Koumyou tried not to collapse while it snicked shut behind him.

 

 

 

Koumyou was known in the market held every Saturday in the _Grand Plâce_ because he was a regular. He was known for being a successful artist—success being defined, amongst these farmers and artisans, as having a little extra money in his pocket; amongst some of the female business owners for being an attractive, middle-aged man who was still single. So, his first public outing with the child, a child who looked a bit like his own progeny, proceeded to stir up the clamour of a religious procession.

He spotted Ukoku early on, hiding behind his dark glasses and newspaper and sipping on his espresso while watching him and Kouryuu make their way past the stalls. Ukoku looked amused. Koumyuu expected it looked a bit funny.

Clucking, chortling, cooing mother hens surrounded them, offering the boy sweets, small toys, cuddles and adoration and batting their eyes at his rescuer. Kouryuu didn’t like attention, and he kept grabbing one of Koumyou’s lanky, denim-clad legs to bury his face in the crook behind his knee with that peculiar toddler logic that that which one cannot see doesn’t exist. It worked, in a way, clearly putting the message across that he wanted to be left alone, and so he would be left alone  until the next stall.

Koumyou was discovering another interesting side effect: people making decisions for him based on their superior level of parental experience, such as when he lifted an unlit cigarette to his lips and, before lighting up a match, had it whisked from his lips by a tut-tutting pullet who shook her finger at him.

 _« Ah, pardonnez-moi! »_ He grimaced, sheepishly, putting the pack away.

Or, when he ordered his usual breakfast of croissant, only doubling it, and the baker squinted at the boy with skeptical sort of appraisal, shook her head, and put four dense, meaty and very dark whole-meal multigrain rolls in his basket instead. Then, when he still tried to reach for at least one croissant for his morning coffee, she fished the basket away and moved it just beyond his every stretch and reach, anticipating each snatch and grab, even smacking his fingers.

Finally, he hauled out pleading puppy-dog eyes, _« Ah, Madam, Je m’excuse! Une petite bouchée pour une occasion spéciale à manger avec ma Nutella  »_ [“Excuse me, Ma’am! One tiny mouthful for a special occasion to eat with my Nutella .”]

 _« S’il vous plait, Monsieur. »_ She waved her hand northward towards Geneva. _« Dans ce coin du marché, il ya un étal laitierie où vous pouvez acheter du bon fromage et une bouteille de lait ou de yaourt qui est saine et nutritive. »_ [“Over in that corner of the market, you will find a dairy stall where you can buy good cheese and a bottle of milk or yoghurt which are healthy and nutritious.” ]

“Oh, I see.” By now, Koumyou caught a glimpse of Ukoku chuckling outright.

Koumyou felt depressed; he was only starting to realize his role as the boy’s caregiver would cause intense suffering and require major sacrifices.

The bakery stall owner sniffed, unmoved.

He unfolded a bill and dropped it onto her rolls, walking away without waiting for change.

As he and Kouryuu passed Ukoku’s table, Koumyou counted the seconds before Ukoku finally stopped pretending he wasn’t there. A hand slid out from under the newspaper which Ukoku was reading and pushed out a breakfast basket of assorted treats with a slight scraping sound in invitation. Koumyou’s highly specialized hearing picked up the sound of travelling chocolate immediately.

“Look! It’s our neighbour, the Sex Weasel,” he informed Kouryuu with delight, while plunking his seat into the chair. Kouryuu was considerably less impressed.

So was Ukoku. “Don’t call me that.”

The café tables were arranged under a fragrant canopy of lindens and beeches in bloom, their shade removing the need for parasols. Sun dapples flickered across the white surfaces. A garden of tea roses in every colour imaginable lined the breakwater, almost obscuring the statue of Charlie Chaplin. The space felt very intimate and secluded, in spite of being situated in the midst of the market’s bustle.

“Everyone is scolding me today,” Koumyou mourned, helping himself to a brioche. “Now that I have this child, my cute and endearing bad habits have turned into pathetic and annoying bad habits overnight.”

“How is the parenting project coming along?” Ukoku waved at the waiter to bring another espresso.

Between munches of chocolate and hazelnut-slathered bread, Koumyou admitted he found Kouryuu to be “a ‘good kid’—almost unbelievably so, in fact, “a textbook case of Good Kid-liness,” muttering under his breath, “although I’m not sure if that isn’t, in fact, something which is ... not good.”

“Oh?” For this, Ukoku dropped a corner of the newspaper and peered over his sunglasses. “What would lead you to say that?”

Koumyou scratched his head, puzzled. “His lack of demands is likely dangerous for his own health.”

Koumyou mentioned that his personal habits swung between an absolute and all-encompassing focus on art to severe scatter-brained running around in circles; if the kid wouldn’t complain when it was hungry or tired or bored, Koumyou was easily sucked into the vortex of his own little world where everything else was forgotten, often until four or five the next morning, including the kid. He concluded this with, “And Kouryuu never complains.”

“He isn’t familiar with you yet.” Ukoku fished a whole-grain roll from Koumyou’s shopping basket and broke it apart on a plate for Kouryuu. Almost as an afterthought, he slathered it with chestnut butter and apricot compote. If Ukoku hadn’t been trying so hard to impress him, Koumyou figure he would’ve never bothered. He had picked up a weird little tension between the kid and Ukoku, slightly competitive, maybe jealous in nature. Kouryuu ignored the food, so Ukoku ignored him—which was the best procedure, as it turned out, since the moment everyone forgot about him, the kid started to quietly munch on the provender. “You aren’t his real mom or dad, so he’s bound to be cautious.”

No, obviously he wasn’t the kid’s parent. Anxiety clouded Koumyou’s face. Or it may have been one of the tiny popcorn clouds floating across the sky, obstructing the sun. What sort of person would put their kid in a plastic tub and send him off to float across the lake? What must little Kouryuu feel like, to have been abandoned so heartlessly by the very people who needed to protect him with their lives? What could Koumyou do to help him cope with such a terrible loss? Or, was this a terrible accident? Was he lost? Were they frantic with worry, wondering what had happened to him?

“Well, it’s only been a week or two since he’s been with you. These things take time.” Ukoku folded up his newspaper. “Isn’t it just that the job of looking after a child is more demanding than you expected or imagined? And the problems lie with you, specifically with your unwillingness to hold several things within your consciousness at the same time?”

“What do you mean?” Koumyou didn’t find it difficult or demanding at all. It was his choice.

“From what you describe, you’ve had a very Zen approach to life, which was all well and good so long as you led a very cloistered and monastic lifestyle to go along with it: responsible only for yourself, looking only after your own needs and your career. Well, Francis Bacon said that people with children have given hostages to fortune. So now you’re finding you can’t drift along as you please anymore, doing whatever you like, when you like it, in the manner you prefer.”

Koumyou now felt confused. Did Ukoku think that the decision to give an abandoned child some warmth and provide him with the necessities of life was troublesome? He wondered at the hole which must’ve been blown in the man’s heart to leave him so cold and empty.

“You can’t focus exclusively on art anymore,” Ukoku simplified. “He’s breaking your concentration.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Koumyou admitted sadly, but it wasn’t really a problem—just an inconvenience.

Ukoku lit up a smoke.

“He isn’t your child.” He shrugged. To him, the answer was that simple. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Who else will look after him if I don’t? He doesn’t have anyone else.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ukoku had folded the newspaper in such a way as to highlight a story on the front page about a capsized boat that had been discovered on the lake and some unidentified corpses—refugees, illegal immigrants—that had washed ashore. The authorities had no idea how many people had been on board, since the owners of the boat had abandoned them. They couldn’t assess if they had all perished or if there had been any survivors.

“You can take him to the authorities and explain how you found him,” Ukoku continued as Koumyou scanned the article. “If no one else survived, then he will probably be fostered out or placed in an orphanage.”

There was always the risk that the authorities might suspect him of involvement in the smuggling ring, but Ukoku didn’t mention that. Koumyou suspected Ukoku was curious to see what he would do when offered a choice.

Again, he wondered what Ukoku wanted from him. What could he possibly want after all this time?

Distracted and agitated, Koumyou flipped to other sections of the paper.

There was a “Missing Persons” photograph of a young, pretty woman named Kana’an with a request that anyone with information contact her brother, a schoolteacher in Leysin. Koumyou noticed that Ukoku had drawn a box around it and scrawled a doodle in the corner with an arrow pointing to the woman’s face. Did he know the young woman? Or the schoolteacher? Then Koumyou noticed that Ukoku had also filled in the crossword and the Sudoku puzzle, which were on the same page, so it appeared these were random marks he’d scribbled while trying to figure out the riddles.

Another thing which Ukoku had marked was a notice about an exhibition on the physicist, Fermi, to coincide with some fundraising events for the Hadron Collider. This mark appeared to have been consciously made, with notes about time and location, so the subject of astrophysics clearly interested him. Koumyou found it fascinating to contemplate Ukoku’s thought processes through the medium of a well-read newspaper.

But different bits of information also leapt from the page at Koumyou, such as the fact that the Fermi Exhibition had opened on June 21st. Coincidences like these set off a storm of fragmented memories in Koumyou’s mind. He could drive himself mad wondering if there were coherent patterns in the chaos. Clearly there was something Ukoku hoped to accomplish by moving next door to him. Which meant he had a plan and a purpose. Koumyou’s heart sank at the thought.

Since Ukoku was not being forthcoming, Koumyou decided to stop torturing himself. He cleared the frown from his face, finished his brioche and coffee, and licked his fingers with smacking sounds that past suitors had found ridiculously seductive—although now that he had the munchkin in tow, they would probably find it disgusting and decide he was setting a poor example for the boy’s future table manners. Their faces would probably scrunch up in disapproval and make him want to blow fat, wet raspberries in them. Koumyou rose to his feet with a sublime smile.

“Thank you for the treat, the advice and the information.” He pulled some cash from his jeans and set it next to the basket, more than enough to cover what he and Kouryuu had eaten. “At least I have an idea of where this little fellow might have come from.”

“His parents may still be alive.” Ukoku waited to see what he made of that.

“Yes.” Koumyou’s smile faded. He had already thought about that. It went without saying if the parents were still alive, they would probably be looking for their son, and frantically. Until they found each other, however, where were they?

As Koumyou gathered up his shopping basket and boy, Ukoku stubbed out his cigarette, reached over and grabbed Koumyou’s hand, and finally broached the subject which had to have been on his mind all along. “Koumyou, what happened to you and Goudai?”

Koumyou froze. He felt his hand go cold and frail in Ukoku’s overheated grip.

“Nobody would tell me anything. Nobody—I never knew what happened. I tried to find out. I tried to get in contact, but I wasn’t allowed to—it was like you had disappeared off the face of planet. I was stuck at home and didn’t know where you were. No one would give me your phone numbers, or tell me how to reach you.” Ukoku’s distress fell out in a stumbling tumble. “When I asked about Goudai, I would get the silent treatment. It was as though he was purged from the family. Even his own mother–”

Koumyou hadn’t heard Goudai’s name in years.

“Go home, Ken’yuu.” It was his voice. It emerged from his lips. But it wasn’t him, at least it wasn’t the person he thought he was. He was trapped in a small, dark place inside his own body, while this other ...  thing spoke for him, protecting him.

“Please tell me.” Ukoku half-rose from his chair.

Koumyou could see the young teenage boy within Ukoku, pleading through the grown man’s eyes. What did he want? Was he pleading for Koumyou to reach out and touch him, embrace him, comfort him ... forgive him? There was nothing to forgive. Ken’yuu had never been responsible for anything that had happened to Koumyou and Goudai.

“At least tell me what happened to Goudai.”

Kouryuu was tugging on Koumyou’s arm. Kouryuu wanted Koumyou to leave. He was picking up on Koumyou’s distress and trying to protect him.

What was it about boys and men, Koumyou wondered, that made them want to step in and shelter him? Was he so in need of protection that even a child who wasn’t yet two would try to reverse roles and become the adult to him? That was pretty damned pathetic. Ken’yuu had been the only one who never did that. Koumyou remembered him talking about it as a means of manipulation, as in “How can I protect you if you won’t let me have sex with you?”, but that was pure canard.

The clamour of pounding blood and heartbeats deafened Koumyou and obscured his vision.

With a sharp twist, Koumyou broke his hand free of Ukoku’s grip.

To the north of Venice, between the city and the island of Murano, lay another island, the Island of the Dead, _Isola San Michele_. It was covered with stone crypts, mausoleums, avenues of graves dating back almost to antiquity, most of them crumbling and in ruins, neglected, their occupants far beyond memory. The island was laid out in avenues of centuries, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dead, dead beyond measure, a veritable City of the Dead, and it made Koumyou wonder how many of them had been truly loved, how many had been truly missed. A marble wall met the population explosion of death in modern times, dressed in a sea of silver, brass and bronze plaques which were inscribed with names, dates and descriptive epithet, sometimes with ashes stored in a drawer behind it, sometimes with a little vase to hold a floral tribute.

One of these little vases held the brown and dessicated remains of a white lily that had been placed in it on a previous Midsummer Day. Koumyou couldn’t make the trip every year. Nobody else went there.

“Goudai’s dead.”

Koumyou turned and walked away, trembling and inwardly reeling with turbulent emotions —contradictory and conflicting emotions: misery and joy at seeing Ukoku, devastation at the catastrophic past they had shared, desperation for having been left so utterly bereft, furious resignation at fate and jealousy — yes, he was jealous of death. And since there could be no resolution, the only comfort lay in distraction and busy work.

Koumyou was so distracted, he didn’t even notice he had left the paper behind with Ukoku until he was past the point of returning for it.

What was he doing? His concentration was completely shot.

Kouryuu squeezed his hand. Koumyou had sunk so low, he was actually being comforted by a toddler whose life was in worse shape than his.

 

 

 

Given the natural inclination to sleep or wake up, Koumyou awoke at four-thirty to the smell of roses and lake water and the sound of waves lapping and gondoliers singing.

No, that couldn’t be right!

He jumped out of bed. Kouryuu was fast asleep in his.  Kouryuu slept surrounded in a large cardboard box which Koumyou had lined with an old couch cushion. He had bought the boy a pillow and some soft blankets, but hadn’t yet found a proper bed and couldn’t afford the new ones for sale at the furniture stores. So Kouryuu was still asleep in his box when Koumyou ran over to the windows and flung open the shutters.

It wasn’t Midsummer any more, but August, so the sky hadn’t yet started to lighten, and streetlights still cast their amber glow across the laneway and over the water.

There was a gondola on the water, and Koumyou shook at the sight of it. Had Ukoku decided to play a cruel trick on him? It was painted completely black, and the gondolier did not wear the traditional striped shirt and short-brimmed hat, but wore the twisted half-mask of Brighella, although dressed in a full black cape and black hat. The face was a cypher, the mouth unsmiling. He never said a word, this gondolier, but waited in complete stillness for his passenger to board.

“Goudai?” Koumyou’s heart pounded. “Is that you?”

The face was too deeply masked and shaded to tell for certain, but the figure was exactly like Goudai’s, tall and strong, full of authority.

Without a thought for his sanity, Koumyou leapt off his balcony the six or seven feet down onto the quay and walked over to the gondola, but as he approached, the boatman lifted his pole and drove it into the water. The boat drifted away from shore, blending with the darkness to such an extent that the outlines of its form dissolved into the water and the night.

“Goudai?” Koumyou’s voice rose, panicked. “Didn’t you come for me? Don’t leave me again.”

The gondola only drifted further.

Since it wouldn’t wait, he decided to give chase. He didn’t even bother to discard his clothes but threw himself directly into the lake and started to swim.

Koumyou could even tell where the boat was going. He could see the mysterious island which had appeared halfway between Vevey and Geneva. He instantly recognized the distinct square corners, and the strange skyline defined by marble mausoleums from every age since antiquity. The island glimmered with a strange silvery light. He knew the ghosts wandered its streets tonight.

While he surveyed the Island of the Dead, Koumyou forgot to keep his eyes on Goudai and broke a contract he didn’t even know he had made.

“Wait for me!” Koumyou cried, but the gondola had already slipped into the blackness of the shoreline, beyond visibility. Koumyou kept swimming after it, but both the boat and the island had disappeared.

Confused, he splashed about until heard someone yelling his name from the shore. He turned and swam toward that sound, and found he had swum past the _Quai de L’Arabie_ , where the ferries docked.

There, Ukoku stood—real Ukoku wearing a real pair of pyjama pants with a man’s half-kimono hastily thrown over his shoulders. He looked disheveled and upset.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” He reached down beside the pier and helped to pull Koumyou up.

Koumyou was completely confused. The lake was as warm as bathwater, but his skin started to chill the moment he was lifted out of it.

“Do you normally jump out your window in the dark and start swimming across the lake with all your clothes on?” Ukoku was scolding him. “I was just sitting by mine having a smoke, when I saw you take off. You never answered when I called, you didn’t even turn when I shouted, and then you scared the living shit out of me by suddenly jumping in the lake and swimming for your life. What were you doing?”

“I thought I saw ... someone.” Koumyou started to tremble.

“You saw someone in trouble?” Ukoku looked out at the lake. He saw nothing, just the first grey whispers of dawn reaching westward over _Le Mont Pélerin_. “There’s nobody out there. Did Kouryuu go in the lake? Were you trying to swim after him?”

“Kouryuu!” Koumyou had left him alone. He immediately set off for his apartment with Ukoku in pursuit.

“Were you sleepwalking?” Ukoku asked him as they toed their way over the pea-gravel-strewn asphalt back to their respective squats. Neither of them had worn shoes.

Koumyou swallowed hard and kept walking. He didn’t know what to say. How could he tell anyone he’d just been visited by a ghost? He would be locked up. Kouryuu would be taken away.

Ukoku grabbed his arm and pulled hard, forcing him to stop.

“Are you going to make me worry about you taking off in the middle of the night, Koumyou? Answer me: are you a sleepwalker?”

“It appears so.” Koumyou yanked his arm free. “Not that it is any of your concern.”

“You scared the living daylights out of me. How can you say it doesn’t concern me? Of course I’m concerned. And what about the kid? You think it’s okay to just ditch him like that?”

“What about him? Suddenly it matters to you what happens to him?”

Ukoku was completely taken aback. He was so transparent.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave me be?” Koumyou dug the knife in deeper. “What I do, what happens to me, is none of your business.”

He tore back to his place, leaving Ukoku there, in the middle of the deserted street, staring after him as though mortally wounded. If Koumyou’s senses weren’t completely addled and he had not just endured a visitation by ghost—Goudai’s ghost!—then he would’ve regretted every cruel word, but he was terrified of losing his mind.

Why had his spectral visitor forced him to give chase? Was there no message for him? He had thought that Goudai had assumed the role of Charon to ferry Koumyou to the Island of the Dead, but if so, why had he pulled away? Koumyou puzzled over this as he hurried back to his suite.

If he had continued to pursue Goudai, swimming after him in the dark, Koumyou would have drowned, especially if Ukoku had not called after him from the shore. It shocked him that he hadn’t even thought twice about giving chase, that he was so untethered to the world that it made no difference if he stayed or left, but Koumyou wasn’t alone anymore with just his past and a ghost. He had two people to live for, two people who seemed to care about him.

Koumyou stopped running, as he came within sight of his balcony. He was half-inclined to wait until Ukoku caught up and apologize to him, but then he realized he didn’t have his keys. It would look like he was using Ukoku to get into the building.

Instead, he took a running leap, reached up and vaulted over the cast iron railing, knocking over his potted basil in the process.

Kouryuu, who seemed to be having nightmares of his own, awoke at the sound with terrified screams and tears. In the rush to comfort him, Koumyou forgot about Ukoku.

 

 

 

**  
**

iii. Excavations

 

 

 

“‘Oy, fucker!” Rough hands pounded on the door. “Rise and shine.”

“Fffuck offff.” Ukoku lay on a couch on the far side of the building. He wasn’t ready to open his eyes. It felt like his head had been kicked all night long.

“Open up, Ukoku, you bastard! Let me in.”

The hands turned to feet, kicking. First, one foot with a powerful _bang, bang, bang._ Then two as the person took a running leap and jumped at his door, trying to use them together as a battering ram. Fucking Banri! Sooner or later, he’d realize it was futile. The day Ukoku decided to drop the Sex Weasels, he replaced the old wooden door and frame—a solid piece of work from ‘back in the day’, beautifully crafted—with this steel-cored thing with safety bars that meshed right into the building’s support structure. Banri’s shins would splinter before the new door did.

Ukoku forced himself to open an eye. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

What the fuck? It was two o’clock in the morning. Banri had deliberately chosen an hour when, as a rule, Ukoku was sure to be home, along with everyone else in the building.

When the infernal racket stopped, Ukoku briefly wondered if he should get up and haul out a fireman’s ax, just in case Banri finally used his brains and did what Ukoku would do upon finding a door barred that he really needed opened, which was to bust through a wall instead.

“C’mon, man. At least open up and tell me why you’re ditching us,” Banri whined.

No, the fire ax wouldn’t be necessary.

 _This,_ Ukoku gritted his teeth, _This is why I’m ditching you._ Then he turned and stuffed a cushion over his head.

When he told Sha Gojyo he was dissolving the Sex Weasels, Ukoku had also mentioned the instruments and equipment were being auctioned off. Gojyo had been the only other band member who’d never main-lined his share of the nightly takes, using them to pay off his debt, so Ukoku had no problem returning his stuff. Ukoku had bankrolled this project, and damned if he was going to let the other drunkards and junkies drag him along on their downward slide. The other instruments and equipment were collateral.

When he handed the bass fiddle back to Gojyo, the guy had shrugged, unsurprised, “After Banri started hanging out with the likes of _Il Centipiedi,_ I figured it was only a matter of time.”

Ukoku wondered if this sort of cool was the nature of someone who played bass. The bass was almost never a front and center stage instrument, so he hadn’t run into a bass player who pulled diva-style shit like Banri. Gojyo was even more interesting, because he’d invested in a real double-bass fiddle — a gorgeous instrument that could reverberate through the entire room, turning it into a sounding board, and a peculiar sort of instrument for a cover band whose source material was notorious for going psycho on the equipment, but he made it work. He had his wired guitars as well, but the fiddle wasn’t expendable. He cared for it like a member of his family. Better, even. Ukoku seemed to recall some shady stories about his family.

“Too late.” Ukoku had shrugged, knowing the information would get back to the other band members. “The auctioneer already hauled everything away this morning. If Banri wants his microphones back, he’ll have to bid on them like everyone else.”

“That was smart, although it won’t stop him. He’ll just go after your stuff.” Gojyo flipped open the case, and lifted out the massive sucker. He started cooing at it, “Hey, baby, d’ja miss me?”

Ukoku watched as Gojyo pulled out the bow, gave it a quick look over and drew it across the strings. “Ooh, she sounds like she’s having an orgasm.”

“Sounds better than that, I hope. Of course it sounds good. I was the guy who brought it back to you, after all.” Ukoku even had to pay for an extra first class seat on the train just to keep it safe on the ten-minute journey to Lausanne. “I treat my ladies well.”

After lighting up a smoke, he nudged Gojyo, “Tell me about _Il Centipiedi._ It sounds like something I should know about.”

“Italians, obviously, but global with ties to other groups. The old man, Rico “The Insect” Delinsetti, and his sons live in a Villa not far from here. You knew Banri was a pusher, right? He would moonlight at the nightclubs where we were playing.”

Ukoku hadn’t known; he would’ve thrashed the fucker if he had, but he had suspected it—especially when some of the dodgier places wouldn’t ask for return engagements. Banri’s side-career must’ve cut into their profits, because the Sex Weasels were a popular cover band as a rule.

“Banri’s small fry, obviously. Word is _Il Centipiedi_ were behind that boat of illegals that washed up last week, otherwise it’s the usual: drugs, weapons, slaves, kiddy porn, casinos, money laundering. If Banri flakes out—what am I saying? When Banri flakes, they may come after you. Knowing Banri, anyone who ever talked to him has probably been contaminated with the association virus.”

“What are you saying? Give up my place? Move?”

Gojyo said nothing, but Ukoku knew that was exactly what he meant. He thought of the trouble it had been to track Koumyou down and take over the place beside his. “Impossible. There’s more at stake than this for me.”

“Then you’d better have a contingency plan.”

“Contingencies, huh?” Ukoku’s eyes narrowed as he puffed on his cigarette. “I can manage that.”

So far his only contingency plan involved a new door, but he knew it couldn’t stop there. He had already calculated that Banri would try to bust it down. Even Gojyo had figured that, but who could tell what this Insect guy was like, or his son.

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_ —And it was a damned good thing that the building had no legitimate tenants, otherwise he’d be out on the street without notice. With a painful clunk in the heart, Ukoku wondered how Koumyou and the kid were weathering it. It had been about a month since the incident in the marketplace, and about two weeks since he caught Koumyou sleep-swimming in the lake. Koumyou had decisively told him to leave him alone—the main reason for his present hangover, although hangovers were pretty much a constant since that day—but Ukoku took their last, harsh parting as a temporary set-back. The dissolution of the band wasn’t likely to be enough to placate Koumyou or win his forgiveness, but it was a start. He wasn’t sure how to mend the rift.

“C’mon man, let me have my shit. I made you a small fortune.” Banri had stopped calling him names for the moment and was back to whining.

Since Banri was trying to get in, Gojyo must’ve told him the gig was up, which meant that he must know that the instruments, sound and recording equipment were gone. So this whole yelling-and-beating-down-the-door thing was pure pantomime. There was nothing left.

Or was there? Maybe Banri was after something else.

Actually, there was no maybe about it. If Banri wanted in, Ukoku had something Banri was after.

Ukoku lifted the cushion off his head. Slowly, he rose to a sitting position, trying to ignore his throbbing head.

The coffee table was littered with empty beer bottles and overfilled ashtrays, and the room smelled of stale booze and old smoke like a bar after hours. He hadn’t even used a coaster, a habit inculcated in him by Koumyou during the Grand Tour, when his personal standards had been set higher, and almost religiously adhered to since. He must’ve been completely stonkered the previous night. Koumyou would never be persuaded to forgive him this way, with everything lying in ruins around him.

While he stared, semi-stupefied at the mess, Ukoku realized that he’d even kept the folded-up newspaper from that market day. It was lying on the coffee table under a pile of other junk. He’d just forgotten and left it there. Irritated, he picked it up, knocking over empty beer cans and ashtrays in the process, and flung it at the wastepaper basket.

Ukoku carefully stood up and walked over to the shutters. It was the middle of the night, and the sky was lit with flashes of heat lightning, but the air was fresh and the city and lake were calm. He could see the lights of Evian twinkling to the west and Geneva to the north.

“You can kiss my fat ass, Mother Superior.” Ukoku still heard Banri shouting at the door. “One day you’re gonna need me. You’re going to be so fucking fucked over. And I won’t lift a finger to help.”

The more Ukoku’s head cleared and the more Banri yelled, the more certain Ukoku was that Banri had left something else behind other than a couple of microphones and an equalizer. Ukoku figured it was drugs. The stupid fuck had probably buried his stash in his apartments, somewhere.

“Bugger!” He rubbed his face and wondered where he should start looking. This pretty much guaranteed that _Il Centipiedi_ would bust into his place and tear it apart—and maybe him along with it.

Ukoku was just starting to wonder if he’d have to involve the police and get them to bring in sniffer dogs when his eyes fell on something that definitely didn’t belong to him: a touchscreen smartphone winking from the clutter on the coffee table. Maybe this wasn’t about a secret drug stash after all.

The phone was on silent, but someone was trying to ring through because it was vibrating enough to make the beer bottles clink. Ukoku picked it up. The stupid fuck hadn’t even used a password to lock it, not that Ukoku swiped his finger across the screen to respond—not until the call went to voicemail. After it stopped vibrating, he was in like a shot.

Contacts and texts didn’t reveal much. Nor did the schedule app, which looked like something Banri never used. The music files were cluttered with junk.

The photo album was a different matter. It was filled with porn shots and video clips. At first, Ukoku almost dismissed them as another one of those nasty things which could get smeared all over a person’s hands whenever they picked up an object used by someone like Banri, but one image seared into his mind: a woman, her eyes full of silent wrath, staring at the person who took the photo as she was being  raped?—Probably raped. Ukoku had seen her face before. He just couldn’t remember where.

Then he noticed something else. He zoomed in on the hand of the greasy slime assaulting her. The ring on that finger was very distinctive. Wrought of platinum or silver, it featured an interlocking pattern of something which Ukoku now recognized as being centipede legs.

His heart started to thump with an adrenaline rush. No wonder Banri was freaking out. Ukoku dropped his head back and barked out a bitter laugh.

As he straightened back up, he remembered where he had seen the woman’s face. His eyes flew over to the corner of the room where the folded newspaper had landed. It hit the wastepaper basket but knocked it over, spilling its contents wide. He’d really let his habits slip since the day Koumyou told him off. She had particularly piercing set of eyes, this woman, and there was a powerful interconnection and coincidence which pricked his senses enough to make him move. Ukoku hurried over, picked the paper back up and flipped through it.

There it was: a photo of a striking young woman with intense eyes, the name of a schoolteacher at the American college in Leysin, a contact number and email address.

Within seconds, Ukoku had Banri’s webmail account opened to a new message with the name “Rico Delinsetti” typed in the subject bar and Cho Gonou’s email address in the recipient field. He attached the picture of the schoolteacher’s missing sister, and as he hit send, Ukoku figured Gonou would have no problem receiving graphics or photo files sent to his webmail.

After that satisfying bit of business, Ukoku thumbed through the other files to see if anything else looked interesting, when he saw something that made his blood freeze: Koumyou, rising out of Lac Leman, naked, and pulling Kouryuu’s plastic tub to the shore. The location was obvious, because the bronze nymph sculptures that defined Vevey’s waterfront could be clearly seen in the background. So, it was clear that Koumyou was exposed in a public place with a little kid.

Ukoku chewed on his lip, pondering perfect storms of circumstances: how a harmless and innocent thing like going to bathe, albiet naked, in the lake so early in the morning that nobody else was about became transformed into something not innocent or harmless.

Ukoku was going to kill Banri.

He turned on his heel and barreled through his apartment to the front door, typed in the passkey, lifted the bars and yanked it open. He charged into the corridor with the full intention of taking Banri down like a bull mowing down a matador. What he saw brought him back to his senses.

Koumyou had already taken care of Banri, who was kneeling on the floor in a half-Nelson, with Koumyou’s thumb positioned against his throat where a quick jab against the carotid artery could end everything, if necessary.

“Ah, I was just telling your friend that he needs to learn some manners.” Koumyou winced at Ukoku. “There are children sleeping in the building.”

Ukoku strode straight for the Sex Weasel and only stopped once had his windpipe in his grip.

“You’ll never guess what I found on my coffee table.” He waved the smartphone in Banri’s face.

“Thanks, dude. I knew I left that here,” Banri rasped through constricted vocal cords, completely misreading the situation. He actually looked relieved. “Can you tell your neighbour to let me go?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe you should tell me what you planned to do with those incriminating shots of Delinsetti? Were you stupid enough to blackmail him, Shit-for-Brains? Or were you planning to keep those for insurance, in case they decided you were too much of a liability?”

Banri reflexively stammered denials.

“Because I figure I need that insurance more than you do, right now,” Ukoku explained. “See, I’ve got a problem. Can you imagine what it is? Me, my place and my former business are tied together with this stupid jerkwad who used the band as a cover for his drug deals, which puts me in a tight spot because even though I didn’t know anything about it, it looks like I was part of it. I’m keeping copies of those images in a safe place until I’m certain that neither this—” He slammed the phone against Banri’s forehead, “ nor you will never come back to haunt me like a bad case of acid reflux.”

Ukoku thumbed some instructions into the phone. “I’ve already stashed copies of the images onto my FTP account, but more importantly, I’ve attached your little picture show to an email text which I will send to Delinsetti the second I tap — this button with his email address that you’ve already conveniently stored on your phone for me. It lets him know that you’re free meat.”

“No—fuck! Don’t, no!” Banri shouted, struggling to break free so he could lunge for the phone.

“Aw, too late.” Ukoku pressed his thumb against the screen with a dramatic flourish. “I guess there’s only one thing left for you to do now.”

Banri looked terrified. Ukoku leaned over right in his face and whispered, “Run!”

As Koumyou released him, Banri staggered to his feet. For an instant, it looked like he was hesitating and positioning himself to fight or at least lunge to grab the phone, sucking up some willpower, but after a side-glance to Koumyou, he stumbled around and pelted down the staircase and out the building.

Koumyou’s face looked grim and cold. It was such a foreign expression for him that it felt like ice in Ukoku’s heart.

“Your former colleague had this in his pocket,” Koumyou said, pulling out a switchblade and passing it over to Ukoku. “I don’t particularly want to keep something like this where little Kouryuu can find it by accident.”

Ukoku accepted the knife without a word.

“Since you seem to have invested in a very violent and illegal career, I will thank you, in the future, to not invite your colleagues into this building.” Koumyou bobbed his head as a farewell and, Ukoku realized with a heart-sickening thunk in his chest, was about to return to his apartment and close off all contact with him forever.

“Wait!” He reached over and touched Koumyou on the arm very gently. Since all was now lost, he might as well tell him everything. “There’s more. It concerns you. Sorry, I didn’t know about it. I didn’t know about any of this.”

He opened the file on the smartphone with Koumyou and showed him the screen.

Koumyou’s face was as still as a lake at dawn.

“You’d better come in,” he said, turning on his heel and walking back into his apartment.

Ukoku had wanted to see the place ever since he took over the squat next door. Now that he was finally in, he didn’t dare look around. He was afraid he would love the place too much and never want to leave. Things couldn’t get much more messed up.

They sat at the kitchen table. The photos gleamed off the silvery surface of the smartphone like an oil slick, poisonous and practically sending off vapours.

“What do you want from me?” Koumyou’s voice was even quieter than usual, but Ukoku knew better. If anything, its gentleness lifted the hairs on his skin, a wholly warranted reaction considering nobody took pictures like these without expecting to take something valuable from the unwilling subjects of them.

“Nothing. I don’t want anything. They were Banri’s. I just discovered them this morning.”

“Oh? I thought you had gotten into the blackmail business.”

“Me? What? Oh, you mean that.” Ukoku waved at the front door to Koumyou’s place. “No, that was—that was me, bluffing. I needed something that would scare the crap out of Banri and keep him from darkening my door again. I’m not so stupid as to try and blackmail a Mafia don. That level of stupid takes a very special kind of bonehead. I don’t need to borrow trouble. And,” he tried to put all his heart and feeling into his voice, “I would never do a thing like this to you.”

His voice went unnaturally quiet as he nearly choked on the emotion.

Koumyou’s thumbs swiped across the screen, trashing dozens of them, even ones where he rose from the lake like an ancient water-god, long hair clinging to naked skin in silvery gold rivulets, skin so pale against the mist that his body seemed to evaporate at the edges. To Ukoku, he had always looked more like a creature of air than earth.

Ukoku couldn’t quite suppress a grimace of regret. With Koumyou, he never had time to calculate his every word and action. The guy flowed through chaos like it was a river and the current would naturally carry him around all the obstructions stuck within it. Whenever Koumyou was around, impulse and instinct took over Ukoku’s actions. With the discovery of Banri’s little insurance policy, he had jumped at the chance to make things right between him and his late cousin’s lover, a secret plea for forgiveness. Everything between them, now, was about him begging for forgiveness.

If he had thought it through beforehand, as he usually did, he would’ve realized that a few pictures uploaded to a private web album would’ve provided him with hours of secret entertainment that Koumyou would never know about, harmless entertainment. Impulsiveness and that one terrible, secret hope—the one he’d nurtured since the first time he saw him; the one that he didn’t dare express since Venice as the consequences were too calamitous—stifled his selfish calculations before he’d handed over the tablet. Now that the pictures were being permanently etherized, his powers of recall were certain to fade faster than his fascination, and he would always yearn for the sight of that tall figure pulling himself out of the water. The familiar sinking sensation reminded him that this was a recurring theme in his life, bitter seeds at the heart of every apple he’d plucked and eaten. Even after he was long dead, thwarted desire would lick his ashes and use his splintered bones for toothpicks.

Koumyou caught the grimace and raised him an arched eyebrow.

“I told you Banri was a junkie.” Ukoku took slipshod aim at a half-assed explanation. If he was to be permanently doomed to disappointment, there wasn’t much point in trying to come off as a better man. They both already knew how much of an ass he was. The rest was empty soundwaves cluttering space. “This was him taking a stand for a little old-fashioned blackmail in the spirit of spite and free enterprise.”

“Then why do you regret handing these over?”

“Um, I don’t?”

One look was all it took for Ukoku to realize, as the wind came to a complete halt in his chest, there was no point ever trying to pull one over on this man. Yet Koumyou so successfully embodied folly and simplicity, nobody would ever realize, from casual observation, how sharp his wits were. Then, again, Ukoku had been watching him a little more closely than most and for longer than most, long enough for fascination and attraction to transmute into something with meaning.

“I’m sure there are weeks ... months ... a good year or two left of amusement left in here.” The smartphone flashed like a matador’s cape in Koumyou’s fingers.

Right! Trust Koumyou to nail him down like that. Of course, he would probably think Ukoku had squirreled away other copies for future fun, because teenaged Ken’yuu would’ve done it.

“Some of those photos of you hold a certain–“

Damnation! Did full and unvarnished disclosures always cut so close to the bone? The cold numbness of disappointment was turning into sharp stabs of further humiliation for never, ever measuring up.

Koumyou waited.

“—a certain aesthetic appeal.”

“Sorry? What?”

He had managed to surprise Koumyou.

“Aw, come on, you’re an artist. You can’t see it?”

Astonishment turned to perplexity.

“Look here!” Ukoku sidled next to him. He tried to take the smartphone from Koumyou’s hands, but when that was met with resistance, he held up his hands to indicate surrender, “Let me show you.”

Koumyou clicked on the slideshow button.

“See? Just look at that  and that one  and that one.” It was all right. Koumyou relaxed enough to let him take over the click control. Ukoku reached over and forwarded through the series. “Like something out of Wagnerian opera. Look at that  and this one. You just don’t see pictures like this in any old magazine. It’s a primordial baptism, form emerging from formlessness, the essence of creation. So fucking gorgeous!”

“It’s an old guy swimming naked in a lake.” Koumyou flattened enthusiasm.

“Are you kidding?” Ukoku pulled the tablet out of Koumyou’s hands in order to isolate the best examples, relieved to discover that many of those where he rose out of the water had not yet been purged. He paused on various examples to comment on composition, colour and lighting, the visual language he figured an artist would understand. He knew he wasn’t visually gifted; the sight of Koumyou naked and wet turned him on, which lent universality to the adage that one man’s porn was another’s erotica, but there was something different about these pictures which lifted them from the muck.

Koumyou’s expression was inscrutable as Ukoku stopped himself. “That’s my only regret about wiping the phone clean. Otherwise, no problem; you have to get rid of them. There are more important things at stake, I know. I got it. Kids trump everything. I won’t bug you anymore.”

He surrendered the phone again with a bitter laugh while Koumyou shook his head.

“He was stabbed.”

“What?” Ukoku was brought up short by Koumyou’s sudden announcement.

“He was stabbed. It was a completely random attack, more of an accident, really.”

Koumyou got up and started doing busy work. Ukoku watched in stunned silence as he pottered around, filling up the kettle and putting it on the hotplate to boil. “We had just been released from jail—we never were charged with any crime; I thought you might want to know that—that part  about the family never—the family never laying any  well, they would’ve had a hard time proving anything. Anyway, we were leaving the premises when Goudai walked into the middle of a knife-fight.”

“Oh.”

Coffee beans were measured into a grinder, which was plugged into a long, utility extension cord that had been strung into the room to serve as a source of electricity running off a different circuit. It was the sort of jerry-rigged solution a person used when adapting old squats to modern appliance requirements. Koumyou hadn’t rewired the place yet, Ukoku noticed with a detached sense of floating. The floating came from the sense that the entire evening didn’t feel real, especially this exposé. It felt dream-like and surreal.

“The blade sliced through his kidneys and into his liver.”

Even if Ukoku could think of anything to say, anything to ask, conversation was made impossible as Koumyou pressed the button which activated the coffee-grinder and the noise overpowered all other sounds.

“Those sorts of fatal injuries,” Koumyou said. “They are an extremely painful and slow way to die. He died of peritonitis and shock. The emergency response took forever.”

He set two coffee cups on the table. As Ukoku reached over to take one, his fingers brushed against Koumyou’s. Koumyou paused, then whipped his hand away and started spooning the coffee from the grinder into a plunger-pot.

“I think the police were slower than they needed to be in order to contact the paramedics. They didn’t want to detain us without charges, but they weren’t going to help us out, either.” He picked up the kettle which wasn’t boiling fast enough for him, gave it a shake as though that would hurry it along, and set it back on the hot-plate. His eyes were burning with intensity as he turned back to face Ukoku. “They tried to keep me from riding with him to the hospital because I wasn’t family.”

“You didn’t let them.” Ukoku’s voice sounded distant and strained, like it was coming out of somebody else’s body.

“I wouldn’t let them. I insisted and held his hand as the shock-trauma team worked around us. He kept trying to make jokes and stay connected, but then they gave him a shot, and he slipped into unconsciousness, and they intubated him. He was taken from me at the hospital, straight for emergency surgery, and it was too late. I never saw the light in his eyes or his beautiful smile again.”

The world was silent in that moment. Somewhere, on the other side of that chasm of silence, a clock ticked, waves lapped against the shore, a semi used its jakes to gear down the pass and thunder rumbled after several heat lightning strikes. But nothing moved or spoke or made a sound in their world, not until the kettle finally started to boil.

Koumyou got up to fix the coffee.

“Goudai’s killer had been released on parole for previous assaults. The fight was between him and some other ex-con he’d been lying in wait to jump.”

“Thank you for telling me.” Ukoku’s throat felt dry and tight. He could hardly force the words out. Koumyou might reassure him about the randomness of Goudai’s death and how he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he wouldn’t have been there at all if it weren’t for Ukoku’s initial willfulness.

“I saw the plaque where his ashes were laid. It’s a weirdly cheerful spot.”

“Isola San Michele is covered with flowers,” Koumyou agreed. “So it looks bright and happy, even though they say it’s full of ghosts. Of course they do. Of course it is.”

“I tried to contact his family.” Koumyou poured his cup. “That is to say, I did everything I could to contact them. Our laptops and cellphones were a real mess by the time the police returned them. All our address books were wiped clean. I used the hotel phone to dial internationally, but his parents would not answer my calls. My letters were returned to ‘General Delivery’ unanswered. It was like they stopped caring.”

“I never heard a word.” Ukoku confirmed, setting a hand over the rim of his cup to keep Koumyou from taking the black bitterness away from his coffee. He watched his host stir scoops and scoops of sugar and pour cream into his own drink to satisfy his insatiable taste for sweet things, as though that would sweeten his life. “I never stopped trying to find out what happened to you.”

“Why?” Koumyou sounded genuinely puzzled. “Why didn’t you move on with your life?”

“Because I was” Ukoku wondered if there was too much time and distance between them. He didn’t know how to bridge the chasm. Silence seemed to be the present order of their world. “I was held to that time and place by my complicity in what happened.”

“But it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was. Oh, yes, it was, at least partially. It’s very kind of you to try and absolve me of blame, but you and I both know what really happened that night, and we both know that Goudai was in that place at that time because of me. We should’ve been on our way to Florence.”

“You were a kid.”

“I was sixteen and knew what I was doing.”

“At sixteen, your brain isn’t fully developed. You cannot control your impulses like a fully grown adult. It’s physiological.”

“Even so,” Ukoku shrugged. “I can never make it right, but–”

“But, what? You can’t bring Goudai back from the dead.”

“No.” Death was final. This was hopeless. He could never wash himself clean.

“So we’re back to the first question I asked you tonight: what do you want from me?”

Ukoku suddenly understood all the myths where the hero had to empty a lake with a sieve or break a mountain down with a toothpick.

“I don’t know.” What fed his fascination with Koumyou? The man was a faded beauty, a civilization that had passed, a magical underwater city, a dying planet, but Ukoku’s yearning was a constant ostinato. He couldn’t imagine his life without it. “When they destroyed your laptops, what happened to all the photos?”

Koumyou stayed silent for a long time before asking, “Why?”

“I thought it might be time to publish them, or at least compile prints of the best ones. What do you think? Would that be a nice homage?”

“I don’t have Goudai’s visual sense.” Koumyou pushed his fingers through the hair on his forehead, and clutched. “But most of them are still on memory cards or flashdrives. Curiously, the photos we uploaded onto the computers were left alone, so that means the ones of Venice are probably intact. Salt in the wound, I suppose. They’re all around here somewhere.” He gestured to the rest of the apartment. “In an old carry-on bag.”

“Would it hurt too much to take a look through those files?”

“Yes,” Koumyou gasped. “Yes. Yes. It would hurt terribly, but so what? I was wondering if I would ever be able to muster up the courage to throw them out. Without Goudai, they have become so much baggage. If you can take them and turn them into art–”

“I can’t without your help.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“I can’t because I was just The Passenger.” Ukoku took a big gulp of the coffee. The heat and bitterness were perfect. “You were involved in the photo-shoots. Your vision is part of them.”

“I will think about it.”

“Okay.” Ukoku noticed the smartphone on the table. “Could I have the pictures of you in Lac Leman? As part of this?”

“I’m too poor to blackmail. I have nothing to lose.” Koumyou pushed the phone over to him.

“You’re too smart to blackmail.” Ukoku admired the image of Koumyou lifting himself onto the rocks, the line of his shoulders curving like the headstock on a bass fiddle. “I don’t know what Banri ever thought he would pull over on you.”

“I had your friend sized up the moment he opened his mouth.” Koumyou’s Cheshire Cat grin flashed for a Wonderland second. “So, I already took the initiative of carrying young Kouryuu to the authorities and explaining how I found him. I also explained I was not a Swiss citizen but would be willing to look after him until his parents or other relatives were found. They were relieved, since the shelter was full and it looked like this was an emergency situation. So they let me care for him. He can be taken from me at any time. He will be taken from me one day, but in the meantime–”

Ukoku laughed. “So, this whole thing of asking me what I wanted from you—you had no intention of placidly complying anyway. The docile cow act was just an act.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Ken’yuu. It depended on what you were going to ask of me. You surprised me at every turn by demanding nothing. It was quite endearing, and while we’re on the subject, docile.” Koumyou stood up and set his empty cup in the sink.

He took a good, long stretch which reminded Ukoku that the hour was now very late  or very early. He set his cup down and pushed himself up, out of his chair.

“I’m still curious as to what you want to do a picture of a naked old man having a swim in the lake.” Koumyou’s eyes just a little too sprightly and sparkling for Ukoku to quite let his guard down.

“What? I’m not supposed to respond to a nice visual? You think it won’t affect me that you’re naked, handsome and soaking wet in those picture?”

“You’re a surprisingly faithful suitor, you know, nurturing your childhood crush on me all these many years, especially after what happened.”

“Yes, I still have my crush.” Ukoku’s eyes drifted closed. His voice took on a singsong quality as he leaned against the wall next to the door to slip on his shoes, “So, don’t judge me too harshly. Just consider—Jesus!”

Ukoku opened his eyes and nearly jumped out of his skin. Koumyou’s hand was braced against the wall over his shoulder, hemming him in, his face right up in Ukoku’s, and his eyes were so hooded and smoking, Ukoku fancied he could see black licks of vapour rising off his skin. The tip of Koumyou’s tongue was lubricating the corner of his mouth, like he was getting ready to snack on him.

“You want me to consider Jesus?” That was the Koumyou Ukoku knew, the droll voice, the deadpan delivery.

In that second, Ukoku knew Koumyou had been riding him.

“Fucker!” He shoved Koumyou away. While the bastard laughed his weird, silent laughter, he scraped up what was left of his dignity and pushed himself away from the wall, trying to walk away with head held high.

Koumyou reached over, grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Strong and confident, he effortlessly spooled him against the wall like a signorita in a samba. Koumyou leaned over and—Ukoku expected a sloppy, wet and vulgar tongue, a tongue full of insinuation, promise and damnation. Instead, Koumyou planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. And then another. And another.

“That won’t do at all” Ukoku objected, pulling him closer. “It’s me, Koumyou: you know I’m a greedy bugger for you. I always want the firmer handshake.”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m the one responsible, just because you’re such an insatiable horn-dog?” Koumyou kept playing coy with little pecks traveling over Ukoku’s cheekbones, until he tucked between his jawbone and his neck. There, he added just a touch of tongue and a soft wet suck which managed to pull the blood up Ukoku’s legs all the way from the soles of his feet.

Ukoku gasped, already feeling the power leaving his limbs.

“Yes, I blame you and who are you calling a–” Koumyou’s fingers grabbed his buttocks and started kneading. “Oh, yes, that’s more like it.”

“What, like this? _Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!_ ” Koumyou humped his leg in rhythm with the falsetto yips in Ukoku’s ear.

“Shut up!” Ukoku snorted with laughter and embarrassment, thumping on Koumyou’s chest to push him away. “So much for The Mood. I suppose I should gather up the scattered shards of my pride and go home.”

“Sorry.” Koumyou caged him. “Sorry, I  the atmosphere was so terribly serious and sad  I just thought if I made some goofy noises, it would lighten things up.”

The soft brightness in his eyes told Ukoku that Koumyou’s horsing around had broken up some of the lingering clouds, transforming acute grief into a poignant sort of melancholy.

With this moment of renewed seriousness, sweetness flooded in. Breaths deepened to sighs. Hands flowed tenderly over their bodies. They gently held each other and swayed and rocked. Holding, breathing, rocking. Hair and skin and the firmness of a clothed body under the palms of the hands.

“I suppose I can’t believe you’re still infatuated with me.” Koumyou’s hands circled against Ukoku’s back. “I suppose I don’t dare believe it.”

“It looks like I’m a sucker for punishment.” Ukoku pulled him in for a long, satisfying kiss. “Probably. Maybe. Let's hope there are no more surprise visits from my folks. That was a real mood-killer. The worst.”

“Funny thing, that,” Koumyou quickly guided him by the shoulders far, far away from the door, as far from the possibility of Ukoku making a getaway as he could manage, which was out of the kitchen and into entirely different corner of his apartment. “After tonight, I feel like mood will be a constant un-kill-able undercurrent for me. As long as it isn’t a problem for you, I certainly don’t need flowers—and there are more than enough roses climbing up our walls as it is, wouldn’t you say?” He was babbling. “Nor is there any requirement for fancy restaurants or boxes of chocolates—actually, I take that back; boxes of chocolates are a surefire thing, and ... well, shall we?”

He pointed to a récamier couch in a quiet and dark room lit only by the full moon flooding in through a set of clerestory windows. “Is this inviting enough for you?”

He pushed Ukoku down onto its cushions.

“Just as long as there aren’t any ankle-biters around.” Ukoku allowed himself to be pushed.

“I could check under the furniture and make sure.”

Ukoku pulled Koumyou down after him.

“One day I should probably find out how you managed to make your way to me, if the memory isn’t too painful.” Koumyou allowed himself to be pulled. “Is it–?”

“Fine. It’s fine,” Ukoku lined up their hips so that they could rub against each other. “How about you? Comfy?”

“Very.”

The Grand Tour remained interrupted. There were many untold stories, especially about the interval of time between parting and reunion. Both Ukoku and Koumyou’s lives remained messy and full of scattered pieces of unfinished projects, unresolved matters of business, relationships that needed mending, potential threats from enemies known and unknown, a strange toddler to raise  but this moment staved off chaos and filled the void. There was no more reason to clutter it with soundwaves.

 


End file.
